ENGLISH

Making the Market: Victorian Origins of Corporate Capitalism

By Paul Johnson

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2010
ISBN
052185783X, 9780521857833
LCC
HD2845 .J64 2010
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
2 MB (2046942 bytes)
Series
Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series
Pages
266\266
Topic
History
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

Corporate capitalism was invented in nineteenth-century Britain; most of the market institutions that we take for granted today - limited companies, shares, stock markets, accountants, financial newspapers - were Victorian creations. So were the moral codes, the behavioural assumptions, the rules of thumb and the unspoken agreements that made this market structure work. This innovative study provides the first integrated analysis of the origin of these formative capitalist institutions, and reveals why they were conceived and how they were constructed. It explores the moral, economic and legal assumptions that supported this formal institutional structure, and which continue to shape the corporate economy of today. Tracing the institutional growth of the corporate economy in Victorian Britain and demonstrating that many of the perceived problems of modern capitalism - financial fraud, reckless speculation, excessive remuneration - have clear historical precedents, this is a major contribution to the economic history of modern Britain.

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