The Corporation, Law, and Capitalism

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, Baars demonstrates 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.

ISBN: 9781642591873

Publication date: June 16, 2020

Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: 'Das Kapital, das immer dahinter steckt '
1
Introduction
2
Theoretical Framework
3
'Developing the Form on the Basis of the Fundamental Form '
4
Beyond 'Nebulous Left Functionalism ': Further Considerations on Marxism and Law
5
Conclusion
2 The Roots, Development, and Context of the Legal Concept of the Corporation: the Making of a Structure of Irresponsibility and a Tool of Imperialism
1
Introduction to 2A and 2B
2 A
The 'Back Story ' of the Legal Concept of the Business Company
1
Introduction to 2A
2
Epistemology of the Corporate Legal Form
3
The Creation of Market Society: Legal Relations and Legal Entities
4
From the Joint Stock Corporation to the MNC
5
Conclusion to 2A
2 B
The Corporation and the Political Economy of International Law
1
Introduction: The Corporation and Capitalism in International Law
2
Corporations, Law and Capitalism
3
Corporations in IL in the Twentieth Century
4
Class Law and Class Struggle in IL
5
Conclusion to 2B
6
Afterword to 2A and 2B: the Modern Corporation and Criminal Law
3 Capitalism 's Victor 's Justice? The Economics of World War Two, the Allies ' Trials of the German Industrialists and Their Treatment of the Japanese zaibatsu
1
Introduction to 3A and 3B
3 A
Germany
1
Introduction to 3A
2
From War to Trials: Why 'Nuremberg '?
3
The US Occupation and Economic Reform of Germany
4
Nuremberg: Political Demands Translated into Law
5
The Turnaround: from Germany is Our Problem to Germany is Our Business
6
The Trials of the Industrialists: from Morality Play to Theatre of the Absurd
7
Industrialists in Other Zonal Trials
8
Conclusion to 3A
3 B
Japan: the Tokyo International Military Tribunal, or, How the East Was Won
1
Introduction to 3B
2
Why Tokyo?
3
The US Occupation and Economic Reform of Japan
4
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East
5
Economic Occupation Policy: zaibatsu Dissolution and the 'Reverse Course '
6
Conclusion to Chapter 3: Capitalism 's Victor 's Justice
4 Remaking ICL: Removing Businessmen and Inserting Legal Persons as Subjects
1
Introduction to 4A, 4B and 4C
4 A
The (ReMaking of ICL: Lawyers Congealing Capitalism
1
Introduction to 4A: Constructing ICL 's Foundational Ideology
2
ICL ideology, Pre-fab Critiques and Foreclosed Critiques
3
An Alternative Foundational Narrative for ICL
4
Conclusion to 4A
4 B
'No Soul to Damn and No Body to Kick '? Attribution, Perpetration and Mens Rea in Business
1
Introduction to 4B
2
Conclusion to 4B: so Many Men, so Many Modes
4 C
Re-Making ICL: Who Wants to Be an International Criminal? Casting Business in Contemporary ICL
1
Introduction to 4C
2
The 'New ICL ' and Re-opening the Debate on Collective Liability
3
'De-Individualising ICL ': towards Legal Person Liability?
4
From Theory to Practice: Recent Developments
5
Conclusion to 4C
6
Conclusion to 4A, 4B and 4C: Who Let the Dogmatisierung out?
5 Contemporary Schreibtischtäter: Drinking the Poison Chalice?
1
Introduction
2
The ICC
3
Alternative Ways of Dealing with Business in Conflict
4
ICL on the Domestic Level
5
Host State Cases
6
Conclusion
6 Corporate Imperialism 3.0: from the Dutch East India Company to the American South Asia Company
1
Introduction: Corporate Imperialism 3.0: The American South Asia Company
2
The Story so far …
3
The Creation of the Corporate Soul: Corporate Citizenship and Corporate Social Responsibility as the 'Last Maginot Line of Capitalism '
4
Legalised CSR, CA Cause Lawyering and Corporate ICL Problematised
5
Consciousness-Building and the Seed of the New
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Appendix D
Appendix E
Appendix F
References
Index