Pirates, Incorporated ­– The world’s first IPO

The media’s attention has recently turned to pirates, those who steal from others and betray the customary conventions of territory and ownership. Populated with iconic Hollywood images of burly men with eye patches and peg legs, romantic characters and cruel villains like Blackbeard, the true history of piracy is far less colorful, but more interesting.
When the oceans and the world were under intense exploration by ambitious sea-faring nations, those with superior technology and financial resources sought to dominate others. The combination of state-supported legal protection and investors’ private capital to fund exploration produced a robust ocean-going business of conquest and plunder. It was within this environment that in the year 1347 the first corporations were created. Chartered by government, these corporations were bestowed ever greater legal protection by the powers of the state, which through its chartering created the means for exploration and conquest and stood to gain a share of the profits. Over centuries, ships of differing flags of origin battled over territory, and vessels on the open seas were targets of opportunity by state-sanctioned pirates called “privateers.” Not surprisingly, such ocean warfare was a major driving force behind weaponry development, improved navigation, better mapping, and ship designs fueled by the need to outrace or escape marauding vessels.
At anchor, these armed vessels became floating fortresses and military bases, from which land expeditions would set forth for plunder and conquest. The ocean-going European powers mounted a brutal centuries-long period of dominance and subjugation of weaker peoples, all in the pursuit of wealth, shareholder profit and increased state power. Once established on land, these corporations formed regional offices, and became the likes of the British East India Company, which ruthlessly dominated commerce and trade in Africa and Asia for generations.
Warfare on land mirrored the pirate tactics used at sea, employing superior technology, weapons and transportation to conquer, dominate and expropriate from others through force. Whether natural resources, agricultural products, textiles, or slaves, as colonial partners the world’s early corporations greedily pirated the wealth of people all over the globe. I wish I could say things are entirely different today, but that would not be the truth.
The recent piracy off Somalia harkens back to an earlier age of ocean-based marauding. Because it is so blatant and old-fashioned, it’s easy to condemn. The land-based piracy of some modern corporations is more difficult to discern. For example, before its collapse Enron Corporation was using its ill-gotten millions to wrest control of public water supplies in third-world countries; this corporate piracy was floated upon a vast ocean of money provided by Wall Street financiers, whose recent multi-billion dollar plundering has triggered a world-wide financial melt-down.
Along with government charters and limited liability protection afforded multinationals, U.S. corporations have been granted all the constitutional rights and protections afforded the individual citizen. In this context, it’s worth remembering that modern corporate capitalism shares an unseemly history with state-supported corporate piracy, wherein weaker peoples, countries and economies were forcefully dominated and controlled by those with greater wealth.
There is no escaping this dark reality of the past, but revising and rewriting the laws governing today’s corporations may yet provide the opportunity to break a shameful pattern of massive economic and social piracy that makes old Blackbeard seem like a pussycat.