1. The Flowers of Progress: Corporations Law in the Colonies.
- Author
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McQueen, Rob
- Subjects
- *
CORPORATION law , *COLONIES , *IMPERIALISM , *ORIENTALISM , *ADVERTISING , *ANTITRUST law - Abstract
The paper examines modern corporations law as an integralcomponent of colonial policy in the nineteenth century and explores the ways in which the growth of the `modern' corporation was intimately tied to`orientalism' in literature and art through processes such as the exoticisation of foreign corporate undertakings in elaborate prospectuses,in advertising and leafleting campaigns, and through the deployment of `art' in the form of panoramas and `high art' in the form of landscape such as those of von Guerard and his followers in Australia, all in the service of creating a `desire' for corporate investment amongst the middle classes. The paper will also explore the manner in which the architectonics of corporate law itself, particularly in areas such as foreign company registration provisions in Australia and the managing agent provisions in the Indian companies legislation were blatant mechanisms in effecting colonial subservience. The paper also examines the manner in which certain tensions might adhere to companies legislation when its role as a `liberal' vehicle for investment from the `centre' ran up against pernicious and illiberal aspects of colonialism such as racism, as epitomized by policies of apartheid in South Africa. The paper examines how in such circumstances these tensions were resolved. Finally the paper examines what the embedding of `colonial' concepts in the deeper structures, what perhaps could even be characterized as the collective unconscious of corporate law means in the postcolonial present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004