If it were otherwise, it would have changed
its nature; it would be a new form of society, whose statutes
would regulate, no longer the profits especially, but the
distribution of labor and the conditions of exchange; it would be
exactly such an association as M. Troplong denies and as the
jurisprudence of monopoly excludes.
As for the personal composition of the company, it naturally
divides itself into two categories,--the managers and the
stockholders. The managers, very few in number, are chosen
from the promoters, organizers, and patrons of the enterprise: in
truth, they are the only associates. The stockholders, compared
with this little government, which administers the society with
full power, are a people of taxpayers who, strangers to each
other, without influence and without responsibility, have nothing
to do with the affair beyond their investments. They are lenders
at a premium, not associates.
One can see from this how all the industries of the kingdom could
be carried on by such companies, and each citizen, thanks to the
facility for multiplying his shares, be interested in all or most
of these companies without thereby improving his condition: it
might happen even that it would be more and more compromised.
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