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Comment by ftrobro | Hacker News Reader

Stora Enso has 20000 employees and roots in the 13th century. In the 17th centry Stora produced two thirds of all copper in the world.

"The oldest preserved share in the Swedish copper mining company Stora Kopparberg (Falun Mine) in Falun was issued in 1288. It granted the Bishop of Västerås 1/8th (12.5%) ownership, and it is also the oldest known preserved share in any company in the world."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stora_Enso

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From Wikipedia: “Some observers consider Stora Enso to be the oldest limited liability company in the world”.

Interesting, especially considering that Sweden didn’t have limited liability companies until 1st of January 1849 [1]. Any ideas how this worked?

1. https://www.foretagskallan.se/foretagskallan-nyheter/lektion...

> Interesting, especially considering that Sweden didn’t have limited liability companies until 1st of January 1849 [1]. Any ideas how this worked?

Legal personhood dates back to (at least) Ancient Rome:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_person

Medieval guilds, city charters, universities were all forms of such. Liability would be implicitly included in such structures.

It was likely created by an act of government/royalty/etc.

The UK law formalizing the structure of LLCs didn't really come around until the 1800s. Think of how many institutions in the UK are older than that (e.g., Bank of England is from 1694).

Or for something that is a little more distinct from the government itself--Hudson's Bay Company in Canada was formed in 1670. Canada didn't exist yet and the laws weren't on the books. It was created by royal charter. It's currently owned by an American private investment firm.

Back then if you pissed off the king he could revoke your charter.

So effectively we used to have the death penalty for companies that committed treason-adjacent acts, or killed customers.

Interesting idea - although wouldn't it have been the government that could, and still can, bring down the corporate death penalty if annoyed?

I think even back then the kings were losing power to the governments that ruled in their name.

It's also interesting to note that some of Europe's colonizing was actually done by companies which had armies, and definitely killed at least some of their customers (whether you think the customers were the colonizers or the colonized).

That was when Sweden got a more general law of limited liability cooperations. There existed limited liability cooperations before that but they were created on an ad hoc basis by the government.

I assume the charter issued by the king in 1347 declared limitations of liability for the owners of the company.

what is the difference between the Catholic Church and a business?

Roughly the same as the difference between a country and a business.

not really

Why not? The Vatican is its own country (and throughout history more a "real" country with lots of ordinary people living inside its borders).

Yes, the Papal States (the state that the Pope ruled over between ~800 and 1870) were to a large extent the successor to the Exarchate of Ravenna, the area that the Byzantine Empire reconquered in Italy from the mid-500s to the mid-700s. Ravenna had become the capital of the Western Roman Empire long before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, since it was closer to the action on the frontiers of Central and Eastern Europe.

maybe historically, but the Vatican is barely a country. if it had any citizens beyond employees of the institution maybe it could count as a coontry

You’re the one who picked the only church that has its own country. Don’t shoot the messenger.

so does disney. it's irrelevant. neither of them have any real citizens other than employees of the institution.

a church is a completely different institution to a country. countries are not decentralised. they do not advertise. they are (usually) not selling an idea. you cannot just decide to become a member of a country. the catholic church is all of those things and so are businesses. the catholic church is essentially a very entrenched business with a weak facade of being a state.

maybe in terms of scale they're similar to a state, but then how many people do the biggest businesses have as customers? billions?

A business generally don’t threat its audience with post-life infinite burn in Hell if they don’t buy its product. Also they don’t impose celibacy to their employees. Oh, and tax exemptions, I guess.

Yeah, modern corporations tend to threat people with things like raising sea levels to make them buy electric cars or photovoltaic panels, or vegan food. They also impose their woke worldviews on their employees. And don't get me started on tax exemptions.

No, those threats come from scientists, the companies just change their products over time to give people those options.

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