Dutch East India Company: Invented Modern Business Practices and Structures

[Bittereinder]

From Wikipedia:

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC in Dutch, literally "United East Indian Company") was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the world's first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.

The Dutch East India Company remained an important trading concern for almost two centuries, paying an 18% annual dividend for almost 200 years

Interestingly the VOC paid nearly 100% of its profits as dividends to the share holders, as opposed to the modern manner in which corporations horde money. Another Germanic invention turned to evil purposes.

The VOC was also responsible for the founding of the Cape Colony and by connection the establishment of the Afrikaner in South Africa.

[Stormraaf]

It's important to note the founding of the VOC was rooted in service to the Dutch ancestral lands, and not mere personal fiscal gain. Perhaps we Afrikaners can evaluate our own purpose as a Dutch daughter-folk more meaningfully from this perspective.

Originally, however, the company had been created to raise through international trade desperately needed funds to defeat the Spanish and Portuguese. The Spanish conquest of the Netherlands, also called the Dutch war of independence, had begun in 1568 and conflict between the two nations would last for 80 years.

http://www.nla.gov.au/exhibitions/so...se_of_VOC.html

The VOC was also responsible for the founding of the Cape Colony and by connection the establishment of the Afrikaner in South Africa.

Indeed, I believe we are very much a product of the VOC's decisions, policies and practices. For example: their policy to maintain control of the colony by keeping it Dutch - reenforcing the Cape with more Dutch settlers when they felt their numbers were threatened after other European arrivals, thereby ensuring Dutch cultural and linguistic dominance. Not anyone could become a Companyman either, because they employed physical screenings and turned away those who didn't meet the Company's standards for health and strength. A form of inadvertent eugenics, if you want.

[Uwe Jens Lornsen]

There is just another thread about the Vereinigte Ost-Indische Kompanie here on Skadi.net :

VOC - Dutch East India Company - Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie
https://forums.skadi.net/threads/333...sche-Compagnie

which by the more general title would have fit better to append some more comments ,
but that derailed into a Southern African problems related thread , so I attach this post here .


I have read Wikipedia today in different languages about this past time's Partly-Non-Governmental-Organisation ,
and it astonished me , that the listed ships usually did not survied many voyages , several even stranded
during their Maiden Voyage in the Channel between England and France .

Just the German wikipedia mentiones a total number of 4'700 ships , that were deployed by the VOC
during two centuries , and ⅓ of them in the 17th century , the "Golden Age" of the East Asian Trade .

The bankruptcy of the VOC is described by several factors , but not by the apparent huge losses
of ships , especially at the Australian Coast north of Perth , while sailing the much faster roaring westwinds
of the southern 40s . When reading all the losses in Silver and Gold coins by wreckages , it is not really
plausible to me , why other reasons are named only for the demise of this Marine Mercantilism .



Some other disturbing article is about some "Coen" and his wife Eva Ment , who is somehow
described as being the person , that had brought the Culture of The Netherlands to the
East Indies , while just being a few years located there :

She was raised in Amsterdam.
When the former governor of Batavia Jan Pieterszoon Coen was due to return to the East Indies,
he married her and took her with her on his return from the Netherlands.

The purpose of the marriage was explicitly to make his wife a part of his policy to expand the Dutch colony of Batavia
with the immigration of Dutch women to marry male colonists and both lay the foundation of a Dutch population there,
as well as implement a culturally Dutch society in the colony,
with Dutch women who maintained Dutch customs in Batavia after the example of the governor's wife,
who were to set example by using her position as the first lady of the colony as the leading missionary of Dutch civilization.
...
In 1632, a new policy was introduced in Batavia:
because Dutch women generally had to high demands on luxury
and additionally often wished to return to the Netherlands rather than to settled permanently in the colony,
which prevented real growth of the colonist population, female immigration to the Dutch East Indies were almost banned
(with the exception of the wives and daughters of officials),
a reform which was kept until 1869,
and the male colonists were instead encouraged to free and marry their Asian slaves,
who had lower demands on luxury and who did not wish to live in the Netherlands.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Ment

[Uwe Jens Lornsen]

Wikipedia says , that the Dutch society in the 17th and 18th century
produced a so-called renteer or rentier class ,
that lived mainly on interests from it's lend-out money ,
and did not needed to work by physical means .

These wealthy persons also loaned money to later enemies of the Dutch Republic
like England and France , who likely financed their beginnings of industrialization
and infrastructure and navies and armies with these borrowed money ,
paying higher interest rates , than Dutch companies and governments .

However, there were few attractive investment opportunities for this new capital in the domestic Dutch economy: ...
and the public debt hardly expanded (even decreased after 1750).
This development gave undeniable discomfort to Dutch investors.

It presented them with two unenviable alternatives:
hoarding (which apparently happened on an appreciable scale, leading to a large increase in the amount of money in circulation, while the velocity of circulation dropped),
or investing abroad.

The rentiers therefore switched on a major scale to foreign direct investment,
especially in infrastructure in Great Britain
(where the Industrial Revolution of that country was about to begin, preceded by an agricultural revolution that needed financing),
and also in public debt in that country.

The Republic in this way for the first time in history became an international capital market,
especially geared to foreign sovereign debt in the second half of the 18th century.

By 1780 the net value of Dutch foreign government lending exceeded 350 million guilders,
about two-thirds of which British government debt.
...
Meanwhile, within the Dutch economy there was a decided shift toward the "service" sector (as the British economy would experience a century or so later), ...
...
Making money from money, instead of from toil in trade or industry was seen as a lazy-bones' pursuit.
...
The losses in the period 1793 to 1840 may have totalled between one-third and one half of Dutch wealth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fina...Dutch_Republic

In that way , residents of The Netherlands financed the ruin of their country and apparently themselves
by buying foreign bonds especially of much larger direct neighbouring countries .

The White Nations are commonly said to become service sector societies , following the manufacturing
society which had followed the agricultural sector society .

It seems that there is no good omen on a service sector society ,
as even the Ancient Roman Empire with it's servicing slavery society
had been ruined at the end .