Holiday story

If you are looking for corporate law related Christmas reading, I highly recommend Christmas on Ganymede, a short story by Asimov. It is a story about corporate management’s response to short term pressures and the workers union refusing to work unless they are given presents from Santa Clause, with plenty of humour. The story also reminds us of the bad old days of colonialism especially because of the way in which rank and file workers (creatures of Ganymede) are spoken about, and of the East India Company because Ganymedan Products Corporations, Inc. seems to be a monopoly on Ganymede. The state, back on earth, seems to be turning a blind eye to how things are run in Ganymede.

Speaking of colonialism, let me add here that Adam Smith was highly critical of the East India Company and of monopolies:

Monopolies of this kind are properly established against the very nation which erects them. The greater part of that nation are thereby not only excluded from a trade to which it might be convenient for them to turn some part of their stock, but are obliged to buy the goods which that trade deals in, somewhat dearer than if it was open and free to all their countrymen. Since the establishment of the English East India company, for example, the other inhabitants of England, over and above being excluded from the trade, must have paid in the price of the East India goods which they have consumed, not only for all the extraordinary profits which the company may have made upon those goods in consequence of their monopoly, but for all the extraordinary waste which the fraud and abuse, inseparable from the management of the affairs of so great a company, must necessarily have occasioned. 

…

Exclusive companies are nuisances.Such exclusive companies, therefore, are nuisances in every respect; always more or less inconvenient to the countries in which they are established, and destructive to those which have the misfortune to fall under their government.

I haven’t said anything much about the creatures on Ganymede in this fictional world – they are very interesting and would like to have their own perspectives to Asimov’s story.

Whether it is Christmas in Ganymede or Adam Smith or something else you pick up to read this festive season, don’t forget that ‘The Corporate Diversity Jigsaw’ (CUP 2022) will also make for great holiday reading/ gifting!