English East India Company-State and The Modern Corporation

Abstract

This chapter offers an analysis of the history of the English East India Company in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially in light of its value for understanding the modern corporation. Considering the various ways in which the Company has been of interest to business and economic historians, this chapter considers instead the implications of its history on understanding the nature of the modern multinational as a global political actor and thus the ways in which both domestic and international law must engage with the problem of the political subjectivity, jurisdictional scope, and sovereign ambitions of non-state, especially corporate, actors.