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Limited Liability Company

How some legal creativity has created vast wealth down the centuries

Nicholas Murray Butler was one of the great thinkers of his age: philosopher; Nobel Peace Prize-winner; president of Columbia University. When in 1911 Butler was asked to name the most important innovation of the industrial era, his answer was somewhat surprising. β€œThe greatest single discovery of modern times,” he said, β€œis the limited liability corporation”. Tim Harford explains why Nicholas Murray Butler might well have been right.

Producer: Ben Crighton
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon

(Image: LLC. Credit: Getty Images)

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9 minutes

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Mon 24 Jul 2017 03:50GMT
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See all episodes from 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

Sources and related links

David A. Moss - When all else fails: Government as the ultimate risk manager, Harvard University Press, 2002

Adam Smith - An inquiry in to the nature and causes of the wealth of the nations, 1776

Randal Morck - 'Corporations' in New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2008 Vol 2, pp265 - 268

Joel Bakan - The Corporation: The pathological pursuit of profit and power, Penguin Books Canada, 2004

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