Companies require returns to organize capital and provide goods or services. The danger lies in the methods used to push those returns beyond legal, moral, or sustainable limits. Institutions and individuals tend to keep testing boundaries until an outside power imposes a constraint. In the Hudson Bay setting, this helps explain how commercial competition could progress from unequal exchange and monopoly toward forts, private armies, and armed ships.
Notable Point · 6:38-8:34
Profit incentives push company power toward coercion
Commercial profit can organize capital and supply goods, while unchecked pressure for higher returns can drive companies toward coercion.