Is this an accurate portrayal of the Boston Tea Party?

[gitfiddle]

I stumbled across this last night when I couldn’t sleep (generally not a good time to find stuff like this, in my experience). I’ve never really heard the Boston Tea Party described as a movement against government treats to multinational corporations.

I’m certainly not asking if this is the interpretation that everyone accepts, but is it a valid interpretation? I’d be interested in learning more about this way of looking at it, so if there are books anyone would recommend, I’d be interested in the suggestion.

[John_Mace]

We do have a rather simplistic understanding of those times. Wikipedia is a good source for this type of stuff:

The protest movement that culminated with the Boston Tea Party was not a dispute about high taxes. The price of legally imported tea was actually reduced by the Tea Act of 1773. Protestors were instead concerned with a variety of other issues. The familiar “no taxation without representation” argument, along with the question of the extent of Parliament’s authority in the colonies, remained prominent.[39] Some regarded the purpose of the tax program—to make leading officials independent of colonial influence—as a dangerous infringement of colonial rights.[40] This was especially true in Massachusetts, the only colony where the Townshend program had been fully implemented.[41]

Colonial merchants, some of them smugglers, played a significant role in the protests. Because the Tea Act made legally imported tea cheaper, it threatened to put smugglers of Dutch tea out of business.[42] Legitimate tea importers who had not been named as consignees by the East India Company were also threatened with financial ruin by the Tea Act.[43] Another major concern for merchants was that the Tea Act gave the East India Company a monopoly on the tea trade, and it was feared that this government-created monopoly might be extended in the future to include other goods.[44]

[elelle]

Here’s progressive thinker Thom Hartmann’s take on it, which I’ve found valuable for perspective.

[BrainGlutton]

There were no multinational corporations in 1773.

[elelle]

Brain Glutton, that’s an odd statement, did you read the whole article? Perhaps not what we know as such today, but certainly the forerunners. And that is Hartmann’s point, in looking at the activity then as what has become now with companies. I see it as being a valuable comparison.

[BrainGlutton]

@elelle

Brain Glutton, that’s an odd statement, did you read the whole article?

The link in the OP is not to an article, it is to a YouTube video. Those really should not be posted in GD OPs; takes too long to get the gist.

[smiling_bandit]

@BrainGlutton

There were no multinational corporations in 1773.

… Yeah, I’ll just let that pass because I don’t want to spend a few days slamming your head against the wall over such a statement. Epic Fail, unless you are adhereing to a very restrictive defition which would not gather much support.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@BrainGlutton

There were no multinational corporations in 1773.

What do you think the East India companies were? Ostensibly British, Dutch, French, and so on, but with operations and holdings all over the world. They were even publicly traded (though not everyone had the right to purchase stock).

[BrainGlutton]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

What do you think the East India companies were? Ostensibly British, Dutch, French, and so on, but with operations and holdings all over the world. They were even publicly traded (though not everyone had the right to purchase stock).

I know all about those. But there was nothing in the nature of what we now call a “multinational corporation.” The difference is in the business entity’s degree of independence from its particular state of origin. When the British Crown decided to take over all the British East India Company’s interests and operations in India, they simply went ahead and did it. That would not be so easy nowadays.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

:dubious:

@Wikipedia

A multinational corporation (MNC) or transnational corporation (TNC), also called multinational enterprise (MNE)[1], is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred as an international corporation. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has defined[citation needed] an MNC as a corporation which has its management headquarters in one country known as the home country and operates in several other countries known as host countries.

The first modern MNC is generally thought to be the Dutch East India Company. Nowadays many corporations have offices, branches or manufacturing plants in different countries than where their original and main headquarter is located.

[smiling_bandit]

@BrainGlutton

I know all about those. But there was nothing in the nature of what we now call a “multinational corporation.” The difference is in the business entity’s degree of independence from its particular state of origin. When the British Crown decided to take over all the British East India Company’s interests and operations in India, they simply went ahead and did it. That would not be so easy nowadays.

Brainglutton, while I know you have never studied business or apparently read the Wall Street Journal, you need not publicize that fact so blatantly, nor display your ignorance so thoroughly.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@BrainGlutton

I know all about those. But there was nothing in the nature of what we now call a “multinational corporation.” The difference is in the business entity’s degree of independence from its particular state of origin. When the British Crown decided to take over all the British East India Company’s interests and operations in India, they simply went ahead and did it. That would not be so easy nowadays.

What? Sure it would. It’s called nationalization and it happens all the time. It tends not to happen in the home states of multinationals anymore because it’s unpopular and expensive, but it happens.

In any case, it wasn’t like the company got jacked; its investors were paid for the full value of their shares (which were questionable following the Indian Mutiny/First War of Independence). The only thing that was “taken over” without recompense was political control of India, which obviously no multinational could be granted even today.