The joint-stock company
Shares that can be traded make it possible to fund something no individual could.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
The English East India Company is chartered in 1600 and the Dutch VOC in 1602, the latter with permanently tradable shares and a stock exchange in Amsterdam to trade them. They pool capital from many investors, limit each one's liability, and outlive their founders. They also possess sovereign powers — raising armies, waging war, making treaties — and the VOC and EIC conquer territory outright. The corporation as a legal person begins here.