I think it is more recent than that

Post #45,127 by ben_tilly 7/11/02 4:53:41 AM Reply	I think it is more recent than that There may well have been antecedants, but from a quick search it looks like the legal framework for broad limited liability corporations came about in the 1800's. Here is [link\|http://history.wisc.edu/dunlavy/Corporations/c_laws.htm\|list] of some of the acts involved in England. Note that in some of those acts, to have limited liability, the corporation's name has to say that it does. I have found [link\|http://www.ratical.org/corporations/TransNCnotes.html\|reference] to this framework coming into place in several countries in the same time frame. Also some earlier institutions which one would have absolutely expected to make use of that framework if they were founded in an era when it was available (eg Lloyds of London) had unlimited liability. Actually Lloyds has started doing limited liability in the last decade or so, after many of their names got financially wiped out. Which demonstrates why one would have expected them to use limited liability from the start if they had the option. :-) Among those antecedants, of course, were corporations (eg the East India Company) created by governments. Adam Smith commented negatively on those in The Wealth of Nations, and the idea seems to have been about 2 centuries old at the time. (A date I am pulling from [link\|http://www.ragm.com/library/books/nightingale/02chap02.pdf\|here].) Then again, I am not an economic historian. This is just an educated guess on their recentness which a short search seemed to confirm. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #45,317 by neelk 7/12/02 3:35:29 PM Reply	You guess right! The UK didn't have limited liability corporations on a significant scale until 1855, when the procedures for incorporation were greatly simplified. However, continental nations did have LLCs much before Britain did: France had the societies en commandite which granted limited liability protection to the "silent partners" in a partnership. These were derived from the medieval Italian commenda contracts, which had similar provisions to protect silent partners, leaving full liability to the active partners. The British reluctance to countenance LLCs arose from the South Sea Bubble of 1720, after which Parliament passed the Bubble Act made it very hard for any small firm to incorporate (it required an act of Parliament to do so). The Bubble Act was not repealed until 1825. The acts that basically created the modern corporation were the Joint Stock Companies Act and the Limited Liability Act, which were passed as a result of the 1852 Mercantile Law Commission's recommendations.
Post #45,426 by ben_tilly 7/13/02 12:39:55 AM Reply	That was dumb luck You, on the other hand, appear to know what you are talking about... :-) Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #45,452 by neelk 7/13/02 7:55:15 AM Reply	For me, it was Google :) In this case was able to use Google to find out what I don't know, because I know enough economics to be able to pick out the right keywords and filter out kookage. I got most of this with the keywords "economic history", "South Sea Bubble" and "limited liability". In Vernor Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_, there's a bit when one of the characters is deprived of her computer link, and then realizes she is no longer an expert at a subject simply by remembering its name. Obviously, we're not at that point yet, but the Web can definitely turn familiarity into knowledge. You know, a computerized fact-checker (like a spelling or grammar checker) would be an amazingly cool application. Think what it could do to political debate. Or Usenet. :)
Post #45,465 by ben_tilly 7/13/02 1:55:40 PM Reply	Google is a knowledge exponentiator :-) It does too well to be called a knowledge multiplier! :-) Seriously I have a talent for pulling up useful random facts even when I knew next to nothing about a topic. Always have. Before Google it was a moderately useful talent. After Google it gets amazing results because those facts get leveraged into searches. As for the computerized fact checker, that would be cool, and what is scary is that I think it is getting close to being feasible. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #45,508 by Ashton 7/13/02 11:16:15 PM Reply	Alas.. what is most needed cannot be done by machines, or with assembled fact compilations, since it appears that so much of this quality is irrelevant to either: Wisdom appears to be suffering a prolonged famine. Ashton
Post #45,526 by wharris2 7/14/02 6:21:36 AM Reply	Talent, talent I also have the weird talent of being able to look stuff of which I know little or nothing about and be able to get some useful information about it. For instance, on Google it is relatively easy to look up the Cherokee "Trail of Tears", but it's less easy to look up the (possibly apocryphal) statement Jackson made to the Supreme Court (who ruled in favor of the Cherokees) "Enforce your decision with what army?" Famous last RPG quotes: "I'll just shoot this fireball down the dungeon passageway..."

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