This Imperious Company: The English East India Company and its Legacy for Corporate Accountability

For as long as there have been commercial corporations, the social performance of business has been continually contested. In spite of this, the corporate citizenship agenda of the 21st century continues to have a surprising lack of historical depth. This article investigates the conduct of the English East India Company (1600–1874), probably the most powerful multinational corporation in world history. Starting out as a marginal importer of Asian spices, the Company became the agent that changed the course of economic history, combining financial strength with military muscle to conquer India and break open China's closed economy. Its rise and eventual fall highlighted to contemporaries—notably Adam Smith and Edmund Burke—three fundamental flaws in the corporate metabolism: first, the corporate drive to market domination and monopoly; second, the inherent speculative dynamic of shareholder-owned businesses; and, third, the absence of effective mechanisms for bringing companies to account for malpractice overseas. The article concludes by arguing that a better understanding of the Company—and other similar corporations—helps not only to give greater depth to today's efforts to improve corporate behaviour, but also highlights the reasons for continuing anxiety about foreign multinationals in Asia and elsewhere.