Late Corporatism.

• Author: Wolfe, Rob
• Position: William Magnuson's "For Profit: A History of Corporations"

Since ancient times, corporations have tended to devour the societies that created them. But history shows they can also be tamed.

Picture, if you will, a baby alligator. Big round eyes, little scaly snout, row upon row of adorable miniature baby teeth--don't you just want to take it home, cuddle it, feed it live prey while watching nature documentaries on the couch?

No? Okay, fine, but bear with me. That precious little creature--it's not an alligator. It's a corporation. It opens its eyes to the world full of promise, charming its way into your home with offers of cheap oil or convenient taxi rides or reptilian snuggles. Time passes. It feeds off you. Those stubby claws grow long and sharp; that wicked jaw closes with a shuddering snap. And it ends by monopolizing the petroleum industry, selling your personal data to the highest bidder, and gobbling up the family cat. (Mr. Pebbles?)

From their earliest history, corporations have shown an unsettling tendency to outgrow the limitations placed on them by society. In ancient Rome, the publicans rose from a class of tax collectors and road builders to an all-powerful oligarchy that hastened the end of the Republic. Renaissance bankers began by offering loans and ended up choosing kings and popes. British merchants built the spice trade into a massive--and brutally oppressive--empire in India. And time and again in America, a charismatic visionary has arisen with a plan to transform business--the intercontinental railroad, the trust, the assembly line, the leveraged buyout, the social network. It's not until he comes to dominate his market that the capitalist feels free to show us his teeth.

The alligator allegory isn't mine. It belongs to William Magnuson, who deploys it about halfway through his accessible, lively new book, For Profit. A law professor and former mergers-and-acquisitions attorney, Magnuson tracks 2,300 years of corporate history, from the Roman forum to the American news feed, recognizing the myriad accomplishments and abuses of these avaricious, innovative entities.

"Wild animals have a way of outgrowing their owners. So do corporations," he writes. Yet in Magnuson's telling, the alligator story has a perhaps surprising moral. Controlling corporate excesses isn't hopeless, or beside the point, he argues. Throughout history, expectations of a greater social good have been baked into the founding charters of the world's mightiest companies. If they eventually overcame those restraints, or ignored them, the answer isn't to become cynical--to assume, as many do today, that corporations can only exist for the unbridled pursuit of profit. Rather, Magnuson says, present-day Americans must take a cue from the past by insisting that corporations serve more than just their shareholders. It seems like a tall order, but there are some signs, however tentative, that the pendulum has begun to swing back toward the greater good.

Magnuson's story begins in medias res. In 215 BC, Rome was wavering in its second war against Carthage. Hannibal and his elephants had crossed the Alps and crushed three Roman armies, and now ravaged the Italian countryside as citizens cowered behind their walls. The only hope lay abroad, in Spain, where the general Scipio had opened a second front. Yet the Senate couldn't raise money for the uniforms, weapons, and food to supply Scipio, let alone the ships to get those provisions to Spain. The fate of the Republic rested on logistics.

Out of options, Rome turned to its citizens, offering indemnity and reimbursement to anyone willing to take on the dangerous mission. Nineteen citizens, likely well-established merchants, stepped forward to form three "societates"--the earliest-known corporations. Private ships and storehouses supplied Scipio, who sailed from Spain to attack Carthage itself, forcing Hannibal to defend his own homeland. Rome was saved.

The public good was at the heart of the new class created by the...