[T625]The New Labour Party

Whether you work for a corporation or you just have an interest in these groups of people, you'll find that there's a lot worth knowing about corporations and their history. At the most basic level, corporations are legal entities in their own right. That means that they're legally separate from the people who own them and the people who work for them. While corporations can be formed for just about any reason, you'll mostly find that this term refers to people pooling their resources for business reasons.
When we look at corporations, it's important to remember that they're a product of corporate law. They require a balance to be struck at all times - between shareholders who invest capital to help the company function and employees who do the labor to provide the company's products or services. As time goes on, we see more and more corporations formed. Because of the amount of revenue available to corporations and their potentially large size, they're able to offer benefits that just can't be matched by a smaller business.
The history of corporations goes all the way back to ancient Rome. In fact, the word corporation comes from a Latin term - corpus - which means body. In this case, it refers to a body of people who act as a single entity. During the Roman era, groups of people acted as a unit to do business in this way, but they weren't the only ones to do it. In the Maurya Empire of ancient India, corporation-like entities were formed. Incorporation of churches and cities was widespread during the medieval period in Europe, too. Forming corporations created a type of support that was hard to come by but necessary. A corporation promised security, and even a type of immortality.
The basic goal of most corporations is to ensure that institutions last longer than just one person. The oldest corporation in the world is probably the Stora Kopparberg mining company. Founded by a charter signed in 1347 by King Magnus Erikson of Sweden, this corporation is still active today. Similar corporations in history include the Dutch East India Company and Hudson's Bay Company, although they have since been dissolved. Like the Stora Kopparberg company, the Dutch East India company's charter was given by a monarch. This company capitalized on the European desire for spices, taking over trade in the Moluccan Islands.
Though today we tend to see corporations as large institutions inside tall glass buildings, it is definitely worth remembering that they came from much humbler origins. All corporations will work towards a common goal, and despite the fact that the earlier corporations lacked the office chairs, copiers and computers that we see so often today, it all comes down to the same thing.