The corporation, law and capitalism : a radical perspective on the role of law in the global political economy / by Grietje Baars.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baars, Grietje, 1972- author.

Series:

Historical Materialism Book Series 188.

Historical materialism book series ; volume 188

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criminal liability of juristic persons (International law).

International criminal law--Econmic aspects.

International criminal law.

Law and socialism.

Marxian economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (498 pages).

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill Nijhoff, 2019.

Summary:

In The Corporation, Law and Capitalism , Grietje Baars offers a radical Marxist perspective on the role of law in the global political economy. Closing a major gap in historical-materialist scholarship, they demonstrate how the corporation, capitalism’s main engine from city-state and colonial times to the present multinational, is a masterpiece of legal technology. The symbiosis between law and capital becomes acutely apparent in the question of ‘corporate accountability’. Baars provides a detailed analysis of corporate human rights and war crimes trials, from the Nuremberg industrialists’ trials to current efforts. The book shows that precisely because of law’s relationship to capital , law cannot prevent or remedy the ‘externalities’ produced by corporate capitalism. This realisation will generate the space required to formulate a different answer to ‘the question of the corporation’, and to global corporate capitalism more broadly, outside of the law.

Contents:

Front Matter

Copyright Page

Dedication

Motto

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction: ‘Das Kapital, das immer dahinter steckt’

The Roots, Development, and Context of the Legal Concept of the Corporation: the Making of a Structure of Irresponsibility and a Tool of Imperialism

Capitalism’s Victors’ Justice? The Economics of World War Two, the Allies’ Trials of the German Industrialists and Their Treatment of the Japanese zaibatsu

Remaking ICL: Removing Businessmen and Inserting Legal Persons as Subjects

Contemporary Schreibtischtäter: Drinking from the Poisoned Chalice?

Corporate Imperialism 3.0: from the Dutch East India Company to the American South Asia Company

Back Matter

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

References

Index.

Notes:

Based on author's thesis (doctoral - University College London, 2012) issued under title: Law(yers) congealing capitalism : on the (im)possibility of restraining business in conflict through international criminal law.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

90-04-39286-6

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004392861 DOI