ABSTRACT
Commercialization involves the appearance of paper representing shares in enterprise, and paper representing rights to income, especially in the form of state bonds and mortgage indebtedness. Modern capital accounting was absent as was free transferability of shares, although relatively extensive dealings in the latter soon took place. On account of the jealousy of the citizens of the provinces of the country the Dutch East India Company raised its capital by distributing the shares among them, not permitting all the stock to be bought up by any single city. In modern economic life the issue of credit instruments is a means for the rational assembly of capital. Under this head belongs especially the stock company. Another and economically more important form of association is that for the purpose of financing commercial enterprise—although the evolution toward the form of association most familiar today in the industrial field, the stock company, went forward very gradually from this beginning.
