ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the business organizations in nine pre-industrial societies: hunter-gatherers, Mesopotamia and the Near East, ancient Egypt, Athens, Rome, the Islamic world, India, China and Europe. Most businesses were operated by family or household members without any formal legal organization. What has changed in the last few centuries is the scale of capital requirements that has generated the need for parties beyond even the wealthiest of families and circles of personal acquaintances. The most common legal business organization before the Industrial Revolution was the basic partnership that was confined to designated activities like a single long-distance voyage, fragile in the sense that it was easily terminable and ended with withdrawal or death of a partner and closed in the sense that partnership interests could not be traded. Examples include the Mesopotamian ellutum, the Greek koinonia, the Roman societas, the Islamic mudaraba (or qiridi), the Indian pani, the Chinese heben (合股) and the Italian commenda. A few societies developed more complex business organizations: Old Assyrian naruqqum, Roman societas publicanorum, Chinese lineage trust and European joint stock company. These facilitated larger capital accumulation and risk sharing than the basic partnership. They were broader in scope, more robust, lasted longer and were open to a larger number of parties …
Hawk, Barry E, Family, Partnerships and Companies (January 10, 2024). Forthcoming, Family, Partnerships and Companies: From Assur to Amsterdam to be published in 2024 by Juris; Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No 4690369.
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