Profits in the Wilderness (July/August 1992 | Volume: 43, Issue: 4)

Profits in the Wilderness

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Authors: John Steele Gordon

Historic Era: Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)

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July/August 1992 | Volume 43, Issue 4

History, like most aspects of human existence, has fashions that come and go. In the nineteenth century, the Great Man theory was very popular. Columbus was certain he could reach the Orient by sailing toward the setting, not rising, sun. He talked Ferdinand and Isabella into footing the bill, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today, the Great Man theory is about as outof-fashion as poor Columbus himself, and so-called people’s history is in vogue. Rather than Columbus, the fate of the native tribes he accidentally discovered and—equally accidentally—largely destroyed is now seen by many as all-important. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between.

Both these schools of history, of course, also routinely ignore the fundamental importance of technology itself. It was only because the fullrigged ship was fortuitously developed during Columbus’s lifetime that he was able to do more than theorize about the best way to reach India.

Even more ignored than technology as a driving force in history is economic organization. The full-rigged ship was extraordinarily expensive in the economic universe in which Columbus lived. If its full commercial potential was to be exploited, new ways of financing it beyond appealing to princes were needed. Spain did not develop these new ways and soon stagnated. England and Holland, however, developed the joint-stock company and prospered mightily.

Unlike a partnership, in which every partner’s entire net worth is at risk, in a joint-stock company, only the amount invested can be lost. Using this form of organization, many capitalists (not that the word would be invented for another couple of centuries) could join together to seek the potentially huge profits in exploration and distant trade without having to fear being wiped out by the equally huge risks.

 

In England, the Russia Company and the East India Company were chartered by the Crown in the late sixteenth century and evolved into vast, and vastly profitable, enterprises. The Dutch West India Company would make the Netherlands the richest country in Europe in the seventeenth century.

The joint-stock company is the direct ancestor of the modern corporation and thus, together with the nation-state itself, the most important organizational invention of the Renaissance. Without it, the modern world simply could not have come into being.

And, without the joint-stock company ,the history of that most modern of nations, the United States, would have taken a very different turn indeed. In a fascinating new book, Profits in the Wilderness, John Frederick Martin makes plain the crucial importance of the joint-stock company and the pursuit of profit to the settlement of New England.

To begin with, both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony were organized as joint-stock companies. Some of the participants in these companies were known as “planters.” They were those who came to New England and contributed their labor to the success of the enterprise. Many of them, to be sure, while technically part of a commercial endeavor, looked