This week I've been reading about how the monarchy in the 17th Century granted monopolies to people loyal to the crown to make the world's first corporations. One example of one of these corporations is the Dutch United East India Corporation. These corporations also played a big part in colonial expansion in the Americas that was going on. In fact the Mayflower was a corporate ship. All thirteen colonies for that matter were assets of the Virginia Company and the British East India Company.
Of course this corporate system is brilliant; the monarchs get power without spending a dime and knights receive monopolies that give them enormous amounts of money. However, I feel like this system only benefits those two groups. Merchants who own family businesses are know told that they can't keep their business because a knight was granted a monopoly in either his town or in trade he works in. When that happens, generations of moral work ethics are completely wiped out just because some guy won a battle or payed for the king's new stagecoach. As far as justice and fairness goes, this system is completely wrong.
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