Talk:Joint-stock company/Archives/2012

How does this differ from a corporation?
How does this differ from a corporation? I think that should be right up front. Otherwise, I think this should be merged into Corporation which covers much the same material. Smallbones 15:01, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Corporations are legal entities which are treated seperate and distinct from its constitutent members. This gives the corporation limited liability and perpetual succession.  Joint stock companies, however, are partnerships with transferrable ownership interest.  The modern for profit corporation combines these two aspects, making it, in essence, an incorporated joint stock company.  Corporations that are not joint stock companies (for example, universities, towns, cities, hospitals, etc.) exist, as do joint stock companies that are not incorporated and thus do not possess limited liability (see the link at the bottom of article regarding the Texas asset protection scams w/ unincorporated joint stock companies). Pmadrid 07:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The article is currently quite muddled. The lead section explains that modern a modern public company and private company are usually types of joint stock company. Meanwhile the 'joint stock company today' section implies that joint stock companies were merely a forerunner for something else. Pmadrid's comment above is probably easier to understand than the article as it currently stands. Any takers to fix it up?--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:10, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

History
History is not correct. As Virginia Company was founded in 1606, is couldn't be "the first" because the afterwards named Netherlands company was founded earlier in 1602!!!! Bahnemann (talk) 19:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * according to wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Song_Dynasty the chinese community started joint stock companies too. these are entities where partners put money together and then hire professionals to run the business daily on their behalf. this occured around year 1100. although i am not sure if they are the first in the world to do this.  65.95.113.237 (talk) 05:18, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the section should be clearer about what the problems of definition actually are. If there are multiple firsts, they should all be mentioned along with the definition they are firsts under (c.f. University). The article currently asserts that the Virginia Company was first, but the cited material doesn't mention the Virginia Company as far as I can tell, and indeed seems to suggest that the Muscovy Company preceded it. Daf (talk) 17:36, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Merging Aktieselskab and Joint-Stock Company pages
What is the common consensus on merging the Aktieselskab page with the Joint-Stock page? As seeing that they are in essence the same thing, I think we could simply create a new section on the JSC page refering to the Dutch aktieselskab. Thoughts?

Mike.sease (talk) 13:37, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. Please merge them if you can. --Dima1 (talk) 00:00, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
 * . 2 reasons: 1. This article although better remains a bit confused and lopsided. 2. It's about the general principle (or should be), rather than individual countries' specific implementations of the principle. Might as well argue to merge Limited Liability Company, Limited Company, Societe Anonyme and the rest. Mcewan (talk) 01:17, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment: As there is clearly no consensus to merge the pages, I have removed the merge tags on both pages. --Hegvald (talk) 20:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Resolving the confusion
This article seems somewhat confused. I think much of this is the result of quite radically definitions of what constitutes a joint-stock company on different sides of the Atlantic. (I'll place Russia in brackets for a moment.)

A In Britain the phrase "joint-stock company" is really just an old name of a public limited company.

B It appears that in the US a "joint-stock company" is a private unlimited company.

Polar opposites in other words

Much of the history section concerns meaning A and not B. This is particularly true in the last paragraph:
 * "Consequently, registration and incorporation of companies without specific legislation was introduced by the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 and further popularised by the subsequent Act of 1862. The landmark case of Salomon v A Salomon & Co Ltd established that a limited liability company had a distinct legal personality, separate from that of its individual shareholders."

In contrast the advantages and the curiously Russia focused disadvantages sections concerns B.

The first paragraph of the "Joint-stock companies globally" section deals with meaning A, and list company forms which are limited liability corporations.

Russia appears to follows the B (you'll have to forgive my reference to the Atlantic), while I'm guessing the Ukraine follows A.

I can only suggest a de-merger and replacing this article with a disambiguation page. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 02:01, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, having done a little reading on the topic I think I get it now. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 01:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

FEATURES: ARTIFICIAL PERSON:A company is a creation of law and exists independent of its members.Like natural persons,a company can own property,incur debts,borrow money,enter into contracts,sue and be sued but unlike them it cannot breathe,eat,run,talk,and so on.It is,therefore,called an artificial person SEPARATE LEGAL ENTITY:From the day of its incorporation, a company acquires an identity,distinct from its members.Its assets and liabilities are separate from those of its owners. The law does not recognise the business and owners to be one and the same. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.207.147.157 (talk) 12:31, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Dutch and English East India Companies
If I'm not mistaken, the Dutch East India Company was really operating on the model of a join-stock company first. A system of join-stock subscription didn't cohere in the English Company until the mid-17th century. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.69.46 (talk) 19:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)