Origins
Although people generally associate corporations, sometimes negatively, with private business, corporations in theory began as means to serve public purposes. Corporate theory has its roots in primarily government and religious institutions, where the institution itself is identifiable independently of its membership's mortality. For example, if the Pope dies, the Catholic Church continues to exist, just as it continues to exist as generations pass on and get replaced by new members.
Public-benefit corporations likely have their direct roots in mercantile capitalism. In the early days of European exploration and colonization, a government or monarch would sometimes grant a charter to an entity allowing it to incorporate and make potentially risky investments. While certainly not public-benefit corporations by today's standards, entities such as the Massachusetts Bay Company, Hudson's Bay Company, and the Dutch East India Company arguably are early prototypes of publicly chartered (in this case, crown-chartered) corporations successfully making risky investments.
Read more about this topic: Public-benefit Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)