ABSTRACT
Corporations play an essential role in almost every monetary system. The first five chapters already provide numerous cases where this role is implicit. The attributes with which a corporation may be endowed not only correspond to many of the fundamental attributes of money introduced in chapter 1, but-in appropriate circumstances-also enable it to assume, better than any individual, or group of individuals, functions relating to exchange (chapter 3), the mangement of credit (chapter 4) and the supply of money (chapter 5). A corporation is established by law or custom with an identity recognized as distinct from that of any of the individuals concerned in its operations, and a constitution which defines its powers and its relations with other corporations or individuals. The promotion of new corporations and the government of existing ones are also subject to legal or customary restrictions, which largely determine the range of possible activities and functions. Among populations where the range is narrow, the corporate structure may be expected to be weak and to play no more than a subsidiary role in social, political and economic organization. A wide range will allow for a dominant role. The structure is generally conservative in the sense that the factors that define it are slow to change: in periods of rapid advance it will tend, therefore, to reflect the demands of an earlier age, and only partly satisfy those of the present time.1
