Hudson's Bay Company

The "Corporate States of America" thread on the other board game me another idea.

The Hudson's Bay Company becomes the government of Canada.

OR:

The Hudson's Bay Company becomes the government of a combined Canada and OTL US (from the Atlantic to the Pacific.)

OR:

Hudson's Bay Company rules Canada and a similar company is formed--The Mississippi Basin Company? It rules OTL US.

For that last, the Mississippi Basin Company is formed when the British get Louisiana due to some treaty during the 17th century. Maybe one of the kings of France dies early and his successor is a weakling/incompetent. That's not too much of a stretch, is it?

Maybe the other European powers sees what the British are doing and do similar things. The German colony in Venezuela becomes a similar company.
The Dutch in South Africa do something similar as well. Capitalism emerges much earlier.

Is this too unlikely?

sunsurf said:

TThe Dutch in South Africa do something similar as well. Capitalism emerges much earlier.

Is this too unlikely?

Click to expand...

Capitalism had already emerged by this point, effectively.

Incidentally the Dutch did that in S. Africa and in Indonesia too- the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie governed all the Dutch posessions in South Africa and the East Indies. It proved to be exceedingly inefficient in the long run- for example, although the Cape was obviously an excellent settlement area, the VOC forbade settlement around Kaapstad (Cape Town) for a long time. The initial Afrikaner population was comprised of settlers who defied the laws of the Compagnie.

Even when settlers were finally allowed to properly colonise the area there were many restrictions placed upon them leading to the voortrek and the Boers seige mentality.

If the Compagnie had allowed settlement and development in the same way the English did in N. America, the development of S. Africa might have been very different.

Capitalism is pretty unlikely to emerge in a colony run by a monopolistic company. No competition and all economic activity running through a single company isn't capitalism. It might as well be communist for all the competition that is taking place. Let's not forget that coporate colonies also became India, Indonesia, and Democratic Republic of Congo.

British East India Company did run India adequately for a time.

Martel's right.

I see countries being bought out by others

fortyseven said:

British East India Company did run India adequately for a time.

Martel's right.

I see countries being bought out by others

Click to expand...

I agree that Johnny Company Raj wasn't overwhelmingly awful, though a lot of the problems that led to the Mutiny can be put squarely on BEIC.

The point though is that company run countries or communities do not encourage capitalism. They are about make profits for THEIR company, not developing competition. Also the public tends to get fed up and quickly turns to socialism, Marxism, or crony capitalism (as in the corporate colonies I mentioned). Just look at the non-markets that developed in America's company towns.