Frederic C. Lane

Economic Consequences of Organized Violence

In The writing of economic history at present there is a tendency tofocus attention on the quantity of material goods and of people. This is not because economists seriously maintain that the chief end of man is to produce a maximum population, each member of which has at his disposal a maximum amount of material things. I do not think many economists or economic historians hold such a materialistic belief-why then would they choose to be professors ? We merely write as if we did, or at least we too often write so that we can be thus misinterpreted; and we are the more likely to be thus misinterpreted because the great political powers of the present, the United States and the Soviet Union, using different ideologies, each extols, paradoxically, its material productivity as proof of the force and validity of its ideals.

Family Partnerships and Joint Ventures in the Venetian Republic

Corporations have been the big basic units of recent American business; in the Venetian Republic the basic units of business life were family partnerships. To be sure, since a Venetian family partnership was not an organization formed for business purposes only, it did not correspond exactly to a corporation. There were in the Venetian economy during the Later Middle Ages some enterprises which required the use of so much capital that normally several families banded together to spread the risks and for such occasions they formed joint ventures. From some points of view these joint ventures, rather than the family partnerships, corresponded in Venetian economy to the corporation in modern economy; for they were organized for strictly business purposes, they involved large capitals, and their ownership was divided into shares. But the joint ventures lacked the permanence of the modern corporation and they had quite limited objectives. They lasted only for the duration of a voyage or until a cargo had been sold. Moreover, they did not have so large capital funds as did the family partnerships which created them. Venetian business enterprise, having been fathered by the state and mothered by the family, remained subordinated to these older and stronger institutions. This fact is not surprising, for when viewed in historical perspective the modern corporation appears a parvenu of uncertain future. In most societies, at most times, it has been the great family which by its wealth, power, prestige, and presumption of permanence has been the outstanding institution in private economic enterprise.

Recent Studies on the Economic History of Venice

The economic development of Venice claims attention for several reasons. As the birthplace of capitalism, Venice has been assigned a leading role in a semi-Marxist scheme of world history. Within a more specifically historical and geographical framework, it presents a classic case of maturity and decay. After being for centuries a leader among world markets it was so placed as to register the effects of the oceanic shift in the worlds trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Cambridge Economic History: The Medieval Period

When requested in the spring of 1961 to review the overdue third volume of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, I read eagerly the proof copy sent me and then wrote this review, fearing that if I delayed until the volume was actually out the lapse of time would dull my reactions. Time had already blunted the impact of some of the contributions, for example, the opening essay, “The Rise of Towns,†by H. van Werveke. No wonder, since he finished writing it, as he tells us in a footnote, in 1940 (sic), and retouched it in 1953 and 1956 Such long-suffering contributors deserve to be reviewed before 1963, but only in this year has the Cambridge University Press finally released the last of the three volumes planned as an authoritative and balanced account of the economic life of Medieval Europe.

Ships for Victory. A History of Ship-Building under the U.S. Maritime Commission in Word War II

Contents: Preface to the 2001 Edition, by Arthur Donovan Preface to the 1951 Edition Chapter 1: The Commission and the Shipbuilding Industry Chapter 2: Emergency Shipbuilding before the Declaration of War Chapter 3: Design and Initial Procurement for the Liberty Ship Chapter 4: Contracts with Shipbuilders and Their Supervision Chapter 5: Expansion and Reorganization after Pearl Harbor Chapter 6: Excess Capacity and the Cancellation of the Higgins Contract Chapter 7: Speed and Productivity in Multiple Production Chapter 8: Building the Labor Forc eChapter 9: Collective Bargaining Chapter 10: The Battle for Steel Chapter 11: Guiding the Flow of Materials Chapter 12: Increasing the Supplies of Components Chapter 13:Stabilization and Morale in the Labor Force Chapter 14: Managing Managements Chapter 15: Changing Managements Chapter 16: Cracks in Welded Ships Chapter 17: The Victory Ship Chapter 18: Military and Minor Type sChapter 19: The Contrast between 1943 and 1944 Chapter 20: The Manpower and Managerial Crisis Chapter 21: Administrative Problems-(A) The Regional Offices Chapter 22: Administrative Problems-(B) The Flow of Mone yChapter 23: Administrative Problems-(C) The Commission and the War Shipping Administration Chapter 24: Adventures in Hindsight Biographical Note Index

Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance.

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