James (Jim) Davis Oct 12, 2012:

Hi Shera I hope you didn't select the answer just because the client wanted the answer. Client's aren't usually qualified professional translators with years of experience. Often they aren't even native target language speakers. Of course Phil and Colin are :).

Shera Lyn Parpia (asker) Oct 12, 2012:

Jim... Thank you for all your input. It has been very helpful for my understanding,

As I said the client decided to go with "corporate capitalism" but may add a line of explanation. I think the last word hasn't been said yet.

James (Jim) Davis Oct 4, 2012:

@wolf Today Public limited companies are joint stock companies as are srls and spas. The investors in the East India company were granted limited liability in its charter in 1600. Also guilds were granted limited liability by charters. Limited liability for companies in general didn't come until the mid 19th century in England. What joint stock companies did was, as I have said, to spread the risk.

Wolf Draeger Oct 4, 2012:

Limited liability I think "limited liability and joint stock companies" may be a good fit here, as per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modern_Corporation_and_Priv...

"The development of limited liability facilitated the move to large-scale industrial enterprise, by removing the threat that an individual's total wealth would be confiscated if invested in an unsuccessful company."

“From all this necessarily flowed a limited liability of the associates. Since only the entity was liable for debts, which did not attach to the various individuals, it followed that a stockholder was not normally liable for any of the debts of the enterprise; and he could thus embark a particular amount of capital in the corporate affairs without becoming responsible beyond this amount, for the corporate debts.”

Could patrimonio personale and d'impresa then be shareholder equity and corporate assets ?

I guess Alastair's answer would also be fine then, though still uncertain as to its connotations.

Wolf Draeger Oct 3, 2012:

Sry, by your interpretation I meant of the term in question, not the IndRev. Why don't you post joint stock companies as an answer?

James (Jim) Davis Oct 3, 2012:

Con la rivoluzione industriale nasce il capitalism o d'impresa.
Well he doesn't really say one came first, he said they were born together really. While joint stock companies existed before the industrial revolution and helped spark it, once the revolution got going joint stock companies really started to grow exponentially hand in hand with the revolution. However, the accumulation of capital I mentioned is as I say, not "my interpetation" but standard general knowledge in all the school text books in England. This guy either read different textbooks or didn't read very well. Different angles. The continental angle focuses on human rights in England because much of Europe at the time was still pretty feudal, by comparison, but English textbooks don't mention that, the focus is on property rights and paper money.

Wolf Draeger Oct 3, 2012:

If writer is wrong then it's a glaring error oddly out of place, since everything else seems correct. Your interpretation both does and doesn't fit with the extract (ditto for mine) and we still haven't deciphered the rest of the sentence.

The next sentence (l'elevata produzione di merci) appears to suggest that capitalismo d'impresa has something to do with scale and manufacturing - factories?

James (Jim) Davis Oct 3, 2012:

Italian author is wrong on that count Joint stock companies and "il capitalismo d'impresa" did precede the industrial revolution. In fact it was the accumulation of capital through joint stock companies trading in India and transforming Indian gold, which the Indians hoarded as jewellery, into productive capital which helped to spark the industrial revolution. Or that is what I was taught at school in history and economics and the teachers had good degrees in the subjects.
First came the joint stock companies to trade with India and accumulate capital. Second the capital was used to kick start the revolution. Capital was also accumulated through the slave, cotton and sugar trade with the West Indias and American colonies, but the instrument was again venture capital invested in joint stock companies. The Dutch south sea bubble is another example of early investment of capital in joint stock companies.

Wolf Draeger Oct 3, 2012:

Right, but then that would mean that joint stock companies preceded the Industrial Revolution, whereas the text says the Revolution gave rise to il capitalismo d'impresa...

I agree that patrimonio personale and d'impresa are tricky, and I still don't understand what is meant by "la conduzione razionale della medesima" either.

James (Jim) Davis Oct 3, 2012:

The first joint stock companies were formed with venture capital Wolf, precisely because no one person could raise the capital or wanted to take the risk alone. The British East India company was a joint stock company and was always 100% privately owned. It had a crown charter, which gave government some indirect control. Famously it had a private army, which colonised India and generously decided to hand it over to the crown.
The real problem here as I see it is how to translate "patrimonial personale" because "personal capital" doesn't mean anything in this context and "family owned businesses" or "owner run businesses" are not terribly precise, while "patrimonio personale" in the sense of "società personale" is very precise.

Wolf Draeger Oct 3, 2012:

I think that what the author is referring to is broader than just company structure; capitalismo d'impresa seems to refer to some crude form of venture capital, in a way, or the entrepreneurial culture of anyone being able to start a business, the only requirement being access to capital.

But joint stock company is compelling and worth an answer.

James (Jim) Davis Oct 3, 2012:

The distinction is very relevant to the beginning of the industrial revolution in the UK, it just isn't commonly made so clearly in English today. In a partnership or family business the owners work in the business (patrimonio personale), but with the advent of the joint stock company the owners have almost nothing to do with the business (patrimonio di capitale) and this is how the industrial revolution got off the ground.

Wolf Draeger Oct 3, 2012:

UK context But the context appears to be the beginning of the industrial revolution in the UK, not Italy; how relevant would the Italian distinction then be?

James (Jim) Davis Oct 3, 2012:

The author here is making a a clear distinction commonly made in Italy between società di capitale (srl, spa) and società di persone (snc sas) unfortunately not made so commonly in UK and US. I would go for joint stock companies, versus small family businesses (and partnerships).

Shera Lyn Parpia (asker) Oct 2, 2012:

It's a sort of critique/history of capitalism This is the text before and after
Si sviluppa alcuni secoli fa, in Inghilterra, grazie alla convergenza di alcuni fattori: 1) la rivoluzione agricola, patrocinata dai grandi proprietari terrieri; 2) l’uso di certificati di deposito e della carta moneta al posto dell’oro, difficilmente trasportabile a distanza; 3) lo sviluppo della filosofia liberale che, da un lato, promuove i diritti della persona, ma dall’altro garantisce l’inviolabilità della proprietà privata. Una “mano invisibile” guida il mercato e lo fa progredire nell’interesse della società, a coondizione che non vi sia l’interferenza dello Stato.
Con la rivoluzione industriale nasce il capitalismo d’impresa, che si distingue per la divisione tra patrimonio personale, patrimonio d’impresa e conduzione razionale della medesima. L’elevata produzione di merci impone l’allargamento dei mercati. Alla fine del XIX secolo le potenze europee controllano ¾ del commercio internazionale ed occupano militarmente molte regioni dell’Africa e dell’Asia. L’America Latina è sotto la tutela degli Stati Uniti.

Thanks for the help!

Alistair_ Oct 2, 2012:

I'm on my mobile and weirdly enough can't seem to be able to scroll down the whole discussion. Jim does have a point. When we talk about the industrial revolution we tend to talk about the UK so corporate capitalism doesn't sound out of place. Italy and big corps don't go hand in hand fair enough, but I must say that even in Italian the term 'capitalismo d'impresa' is pretty strong, I'm not sure a lighter term than corporate capitalism would cover it, I certainly can't come up with a milder version.

Wolf Draeger Oct 2, 2012:

Large-scale factories Perhaps?

Wolf Draeger Oct 2, 2012:

Context and doubts Shera, do you have more context; what is the theme of this text and the angle from which it is approached?

I don't understand the writer's point; property rights existed long before the Industrial Revolution (at least in England), and what is la conduzione razionale della medesima supposed to mean here? Good management is surely not a feature of the Ind.Rev....

Wolf Draeger Oct 2, 2012:

Jim has a point Corporate capitalism could be mistaken for corporatism, which refers to crony capitalism.

James (Jim) Davis Oct 1, 2012:

Joint stock companies Might just fit better than corporate capitalism with all its multinational connotations.

James (Jim) Davis Oct 1, 2012:

Hi Shera Not sure I have the courage to post just "capitalism" with four weighty "Corporate"s there. Anyway. When people talk about "corporate capitalism" today the discourse is usually about the power of the big corporations, especially the big multinationals with budgets bigger than those of whole countries and that sort of thing. Now I think that an Italian might tend to simply use it as just plain ordinary capitalism.
Wiki actually sets corporate capitalism as the capitalism of limited liability companies. Now at the beginning of the industrial revolution most big companies were family enterprises probably without limited responsability, while the modern corporation is an anonymouse profit driven entity. I would weigh it up on the basis of the broader context.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_capitalism