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The corporation from the Middle Ages to intellectual monopoly capitalism

Ugo Pagano

Journal of Institutional Economics2026https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100502article
AJG 3ABDC B
Weight
0.50

Abstract

The modern business corporation emerged from the medieval and chartered corporations. The medieval tradition of legal pluralism was replaced by two ‘pure’ disciplines – Law and Economics – that left no conceptual space to understand its hybrid nature, decentralizing law-making and centralizing market transactions, or to frame its person-thing duality. Under intellectual monopoly capitalism, this hybrid nature has degenerated: corporations have monopolized knowledge, outsourced production to dependent peripheral firms, and become deeply intertwined with financial markets and geopolitical rivalries – lending substance to notions of techno-feudalism, while marking a profound break with the medieval tradition of open science that first made competitive markets possible.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100502

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@article{ugo2026,
  title        = {{The corporation from the Middle Ages to intellectual monopoly capitalism}},
  author       = {Ugo Pagano},
  journal      = {Journal of Institutional Economics},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/s1744137426100502},
}

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The corporation from the Middle Ages to intellectual monopoly capitalism

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Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

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