The Hudson's Bay Company (company of venturers) had a charter from the English Crown. They had some pretty wide latitude and went beyond that.

[snip]

Ken Rutsky wrote:

I always thought it was more like the Dutch East India Company, which operated as pretty much an independent entity, able to engage in diplomacy, conduct war, establish courts, mint coins, and establish its own colonies.

David Johnson wrote:

Thomas RUX wrote:

IIRC on a small scale governance by company/corporation would be something like the early coal mining industry. The company/corporation owned the houses, stores, schools, churches, etc. The employees had no say in their pay, working hours, benefits, or working conditions. As long as the company/corporation did not break local or, in the case of the USA, federal laws they could and did get away with a lot of shenanigans.

Sure. I'm guessing the old "company town" was one of the inspirations for this particular "government" type.

I mentioned both VOC and HBC specifically in my original post and the truth is all three of these types of "company / corporate" governments fit under Government type 1.

But one of the key elements of the charters VOC and HBC held from their respective national governments was a monopoly position in their identified markets enforced by that government. VOC would have been much less successful in Asia of it had faced competition from other Dutch "merchant adventurers." Likewise HBC in Rupert's Land faced increasingly stiff competition from the North West Company until the two were forced to merge by the British government.

Which fact merely illustrates that "company / corporate" isn't actually a "government" type at all. It's a particular form of "captive" government that happens to be managed by a commercial enterprise.