>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Stock_Companies_Act_1844>
>>
>> The Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 (7 & 8 Vict. c.110) was an Act of
>> the Parliament of the United Kingdom that expanded access to the
>> incorporation of joint-stock companies in the UK.
>>
>
> I'm not sure what your point is. These are laws providing for the
> creation of stock companies. The actual spread of stock companies to the
> point of dominating the economy (75% of the domestic business sector
> today in the US) came long after Marx was dead.
>
> SA
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Well, if you'd read the pieces even slightly carefully you might have noticed that the so-called private/social distinction as regards to property was not foremost on the minds of those who wanted the laws regarding corporate governance changed nor was it the the overarching goal of the legislators per se. The proliferation of vertically integrated firms -and one could rather easily make the case that that is what KM was referring to when he used the term social capital and directly associated producers- had been transforming the nation of shopkeepers to a sufficient enough extent that by 1856 the transformation of liability management was considered an effective way of dealing with manufacturing competition from the former colonies across the Atlantic*. State policy driven theorizations of property rendered the phrase 'private property' extremely problematic even then; why many Marxists cling to it escapes me. Perhaps it has something to do with foregrounding Lockean justifications of ownership in abstract narratives rather than paying careful consideration to what the legal profession in England actually did to get Parliament to change the laws. If property is a form of governance, then the issue of the corporate/democratic problem is of greater relevance than the social/private issue.
Ian
*David Moss "When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager" and William G. Roy "Socializing Capital" are great sources on the topic.