this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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I'm not even done watching this yet, but the suggestion is that the spice trade had a lot to do with what our current economy looks like, with stock company firms that you mention.
Oh yes, the spice trade, being both an immensely risky and profitable venture, was a major contributor to the rise of both stock companies and limited liability law. Few people could afford the ship and the horrifically expensive full cargo hold on their lonesome, and no one wants to be on the hook for the totality of the loss if a (notoriously unreliable) sailing ship fails to make it home.
Wasn't the Dutch East India Company the first stock company, as we currently understand publicly traded companies?
A TIL for me from this video, the Dutch acquired the island of Ran in the Banda (Spice) Islands from the British, by trading the British New Amsterdam.
There were a few earlier examples in England, but it was certainly one of the first. The English (later British) EIC was a tradeable a couple of years before its Dutch counterpart, and the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands was several decades earlier