Making the Market
Victorian Origins of Corporate Capitalism

This innovative study reveals how and why capitalist institutions were created and the moral, economic and legal assumptions behind them.

Paul Johnson (Author)

9781107679887, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 July 2013

266 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.39 kg

'Fascinating.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

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.

1. Mammon's cradle
Part I. Individuals: 2. Contracts, debts and debtors
3. Coercion, custom and contract at work
Part II. Institutions: 4. The incorporation of business
5. The limitation of liability
6. Corporate performance
Part III. Information: 7. Shareholders, directors and promoters
8. Mammon's conceit
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], British & Irish history [HBJD1]