Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2015

 

The Setting up of Business Corporations and the Transition of Political Culture in Early America

(Abstract)

 

Dong Yu

 

After the American Revolutionary War, various state governments began to set up business corporations in banking, transportation, manufacturing industry, insurance, etc. These corporations were defined as public organizations, and state governments allowed only a few members of the elite to manage them. Only a few of the many elite founders of the new state were able to serve the public interest and transcend their own private interests. However, the process of setting up these companies involved personal, party and regional interests. Their establishment reflects a complex political culture in which ideas of rule by an elite coexisted with the pursuit of all kinds of private interests. More important is the fact that the stress on elite rule was challenged in both the political and the economic field. The pursuit of private interests not only represented the deconstruction of classic republican discourse, but also initiated profound changes in the political culture of the era.