Prologue: The European Origins of American Business

"The business of America is business."--Calvin Coolidge's Second Law of Economics

1. Introduction
   1. The United States as a Business Culture
   2. Origins--The Colonies as Business Enterprises
2. In the Beginning--The Early Middle Ages
   1. Subsistence Agriculture
   2. Rule by Priests and Warriors
      1. Long-standing Reciprocal Obligations
      2. Hierarchical Loyalties--Feudalism
   3. Consequences
      1. Fidelity over Opportunism
      2. Family over Merit
      3. Personal, not Legal, Authority
      4. Tradition over Innovation
3. Appearance of Long-Distance Trade in Luxury Goods
   1. Towns
   2. Fairs--Itinerant Merchants
   3. Wholesale Trade
   4. Organization--the Northern Italian City-States
4. The Evolution of Business Institutions
   1. The Problems
      1. Cost of Travel
      2. The Problem of Trust
         1. Reliance on Family or Co-Religionists (Jewish Merchants)
         2. Risk of Going "Outside"
      3. Bandits, Pirates, and "Robber Barons"
      4. Hazards of Seafaring
      5. Poor Contract Enforcement
      6. Market Risk
   2. The Strategies
      1. Objectives
         1. Minimize Risk,
         2. Allow for Expansion in the Scope of Business
         3. Increase the Speed and Flexibility of Transactions.
      2. Innovations
         1. Town Life
            1. Self-Government
            2. Commercial Law--The Legal Guild
         2. Paper Instruments--Bills of Exchange
            1. Getting Around Church Prohibition of Usury
            2. Building Cost of Risk Into Exchanges
            3. Market Flexibility
               1. The First Securities Markets
               2. Deposit Banking
               3. Result--Ability to Conduct Affairs at a Distance--The End of Itineracy
         3. Insurance--Risk-Pooling--The Case of Lloyd's of London.
         4. Minimizing Risk by Expanding Scope of Operations Across Space and Time
            1. The Problem of Trust
               1. Business as Family, Family as Business
               2. Fictive Family--Apprentices, Sons-in-Law, etc.
               3. Limits of Family as Business Organization
            2. The Problem of Continuity--How to Measure Performance?
            3. Solution
               1. A New Form of Accounting--Double-Entry Bookkeeping
               2. Separating the Business from those Doing the Business--The Invention of the Firm
                  1. (Potentially) Eternal Across Time
                  2. (Potentially) Infinite Across Space
5. Italian Business Institutions Come to England--The Sixteenth Century
   1. National Unification--The Tudors
   2. A Market Revolution--The Woolen Trade
   3. The English Enter Long-Distance Trade
      1. Technological Revolution--The Three-Masted Ship.
      2. Commercial Innovation--The Joint-Stock Company
6. To Jamestown