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| East India Company ship on trade mission to India |
(0:00) When the East India Company commissioned a painting of the events that took place in 1623 in (0:08) Amboina, a clove-producing island in what is now the Indonesian archipelago, the painting inflamed (0:15) and ignited public opinion. Entitled The Amboina Atrocities, the painting depicted the torture and (0:21) beheading of ten English merchants by Dutch agents, allegedly for attempting to (0:27) seize control of the lucrative spice trade in the region. The painting was so incendiary that after (0:33) only two weeks on display at the Company's headquarters, the king ordered it removed, and it was never (0:39) seen in public again.
But the memory of the events at Amboina endured. Between 1624 and 1781, the East India (0:47) Company published a pamphlet a dozen times entitled A True Relation of the Unjust, Cruel, and Barbarous Proceedings against the English, with two frightening illustrations on the (0:58) cover depicting Dutch interrogators torturing the English merchants, all (1:03) of whom had now been turned into martyrs. The Amboina massacre, as it became known, became part of the (1:09) origin story of the Company and, by extension, of the British Empire in Asia.
The defeat at Amboina and (1:16) the cruel deaths of its merchants drove the Company away from the spice trade in the East Indies (1:21) and competition with the Dutch East India Company, VOC, VOC. Instead, (1:28) the East India Company turned to the textile trade—cotton and silk—with (1:33) the Mughal Empire in South Asia, eventually expanding its lucrative trade to (1:38) products such as tea and the illegal opium trade, while extending its influence throughout (1:43) the Indian subcontinent to the Persian Gulf, China, and other parts of Asia. What began with the massacre (1:48) of Amboina would eventually result in the creation of an empire that spanned the globe and (1:54) ultimately forged the modern world as we know it.
The East India Company, possibly the (2:05) most painful public-private partnership in history, contributed to the formation of the British (2:11) Empire, spurred European industrialization, and unified the global economy. It was the principal (2:16) among dozens of other companies that obtained monopoly rights and sovereign claims (2:21) through political concessions issued. These companies, avatars of the crown, combined the pursuit of (2:28) profit with the prerogatives of government, although they often ruled as they pleased, (2:34) with no respect for laws, let alone local customs.
By importing raw materials, (2:40) they fueled the manufacturing sector of the Industrial Revolution, stimulated demand (2:44) for foreign goods, and dominated the growing capital markets of London, (2:49) while executing the state's desires in building the British Empire. (2:54) These companies helped claim nearly one-third of the world's territory for the United Kingdom, (2:59) making the Empire the largest ever known. Since that time, historians have debated (3:04) the significance and lasting impact of these companies from the Imperial Era.
Some, using (3:09) their profit and scale as a metric, see today's giant corporations as (3:14) contemporary manifestations of such companies that were common in that era. (3:19) Others view the largest of them, the East India Company, as even more powerful. It has been (3:25) described as the CIA, the NSA, and the biggest and most terrifying multinational on Earth, all (3:31) rolled into one company.
A corporation whose power, much like that of a company like Meta, (3:36) remained virtually unchecked for years. These companies often existed beyond the (3:43) reach of state regulation and, in many ways, functioned as independent states (3:48) with their own forms of sovereignty. Born out of relentless wars, (3:53) the East India Company and the VOC became two of the most powerful corporations (3:59) the world has ever known.
Both were granted state-guaranteed monopolies and possessed (4:03) powers typically associated with sovereign states, including the right to build fortresses, (4:08) maintain armies, mint currency, declare war, sign treaties, and engage in diplomacy with (4:16) non-European entities. They were also unmistakably commercial enterprises at the (4:21) forefront of financial innovation, which, combined with their unbridled ambition and license to wage (4:26) war, generated incredible wealth, enough to fuel the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th (4:31) century and the British Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Amsterdam, paintings by great (4:37) artists like Rembrandt and Johannes Vermeer adorned the era, and innovative ideas, including (4:43) those of philosophers Baruch Spinoza and Hugo Grotius, spread everywhere.
In London, (4:50) imported commodities contributed to the growth of domestic production and the emergence (4:55) of an urban middle class. Many at the time, including the thinker and conservative Edmund Burke, (5:00) saw the fortunes of the East India Company and those of Great Britain as being (5:06) inexorably linked. The VOC emerged as the world's first publicly traded company, (5:12) paying average annual dividends of 18% for nearly two centuries.
At its peak, the VOC was worth the equivalent (5:19) of about $7.9 trillion today, a value greater than the combined current market values (5:27) of Alibaba, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Chevron, (5:34) ExxonMobil, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald's, Netflix, Samsung, Tencent, Visa, and Walmart. (5:42) The East India Company, meanwhile, evolved into a permanent publicly traded company in 1657. (5:49) Like modern corporations, it had the legal status of a corporate person with rights (5:55) but few obligations, transferable shares, limited liability, and a separation between (6:01) management—the directors—and owners—the shareholders.
As with the VOC, anyone could (6:07) invest in the imperial trade venture, profiting financially and even claiming (6:12) a certain overseas power. To give you an idea, in the early 19th century, the East (6:18) India Company had a private army of 200,000 soldiers, twice the size of the United (6:23) Kingdom's. It was responsible for nearly half of the country’s trade and governed most of the (6:28) Indian subcontinent.
Shareholders annually elected merchants and statesmen who (6:34) formulated and implemented policies, determining the fate of millions of (6:38) inhabitants in regions under the Company’s control. The VOC and the East India Company (6:44) blurred the lines between public and private in pursuit of profit and power, but they were not (6:49) alone. European states granted these kinds of licenses and helped dozens of private companies (6:56), which, in turn, provided the engines of imperial and capitalist expansion worldwide.
(7:01) In England's march to build its empire, there were dozens of other companies of this type that (7:06) received monopoly rights and financed and drove the earliest attempts to found (7:12) English colonies and profit from the trade of all kinds of raw materials, as well as enslaved people (7:17). English merchants, establishing the economic and political foundations of the empire, still (7:23) depended on state intervention to secure access to markets. Military (7:28) ships kept the doors of trade open, for example, in China during the Opium Wars in the (7:33) 19th century.
The navy patrolled colonial waters, protecting the transport of goods, especially (7:39) after the Battle of Lagos, a devastating defeat in 1693. The imperial companies generously (7:46) contributed to state coffers through customs duties, with just five companies, (7:52) mainly the East India Company, accounting for about a third of Britain's public budget (7:57) in the mid-18th century. These companies also helped generate many (8:03) jobs, whether in London's ports or at sea and on the empire's battlefields.
The Levant (8:09) Company alone employed around 5,000 sailors by the late 17th century. But to interpret (8:16) the British Empire as a story of corporate colonialism still leaves only a (8:21) partial image of this history. David Livingstone, the famous British missionary and explorer of the (8:29) 19th century, summed up the imperial creed of the United Kingdom in three words: Christianity, commerce, and (8:36) civilization.
Power and profit certainly drove both states and companies, just as (8:41) they do for corporations today. But states and companies, during the Age of Empire, did not operate (8:46) in ideological vacuums, just like modern corporations. The notion of the UK's civilizing mission was seen as crucial both in the metropolis and throughout the Empire.
This (8:58) led countless missionaries, like Livingstone, to spread the Gospel and Western norms (9:04) around the world, while young colonial administrators tried to reshape the Empire’s subjects (9:10) in the liberal and modern image of the United Kingdom. But the East India Company was far (9:14) from unanimous approval, nor was it eternal, and eventually found itself dismantled and eliminated (9:20) by the British state. As early as the 17th century, an English parliamentarian wrote of the Company (9:26) as a bloodsucker of the common good.
Their destructive behavior extended to (9:33) local populations through famine-inducing policies, exploitative labor practices, and (9:39) scorched-earth tactics. The famous economist Adam Smith even ridiculed such companies for (9:45) their negligence, insisting that they were relics of a bygone era of capitalist organization that (9:50) hindered economic growth and gave rise to mismanagement and abuse. Burke himself, (9:56) as a politician, led the impeachment trial of Warren Hastings, the Governor (10:02) General of Bengal from the East India Company, in the House of Lords.
He was outraged not (10:08) by Britain's imperial ambition but by the conduct of Hastings and East India Company officials, whom Burke ridiculed as "boys without tutors, minors without (10:20) guardians." In the trial, he said, "The world is set loose upon them with all its temptations, (10:27) and they are set loose upon the world with all the powers that despotism encompasses."
Parliament, (10:34) especially after the fiscal crisis of the East India Company and the massive government bailout (10:39) in the 1770s, insisted on reducing the company's corporate sovereignty, replacing it (10:46) with increased oversight until, after the seismic rebellion in India in 1857, it nationalized (10:52) the company's administration under British crown power. Less than 20 years later, the company was (10:58) dissolved, although its corrupt practices lived on in other states and companies of the Empire, (11:03) as well as in some of today's multinational corporations. Governments and corporations today can (11:09) and should learn from the mistakes of the global giants that financed and propelled (11:13) European empires.
These companies, launched as capitalist ventures, quickly (11:19) became public-private partnerships, acquiring and maintaining territories while transcending (11:24) sovereign borders and frequently staying out of reach of the laws of sovereign states. (11:30) Like some of today's multinationals, they were very good at lobbying and creating new (11:36) structures and corporate forms to avoid state-led legislation that couldn't (11:40) contain them. The recent questioning of Mark Zuckerberg by the U.S. Congress and (11:46) Facebook's disproportionate influence on political outcomes bore some similarities (11:50) to Hastings' interrogations by Burke in the 18th-century parliament.
These necessary (11:56) critiques can be satisfying in the face of existential global crises that demand solutions (12:02) rather than complaints and warnings. Whether it’s the East India Company or Facebook, (12:08) multinational corporations often exploit the weaknesses of the state—or its complete absence.
Professor HOC
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