Could modern corporations have kept private navies?

A closing thought experiment asks how modern trade and anti-piracy might look if chartered companies had kept monopolies and armed fleets, then considers why sovereign states would suppress them.

Question

If chartered-company powers had survived into the modern corporate era, how might private navies, global trade protection, and piracy have changed?

Short answer

Large companies might have fielded fleets to defend monopoly trade, but governments would likely destroy any corporation strong enough to rival sovereign power.

Notes

The thought experiment extends the Hudson's Bay and East India Company model into the present: corporations could hold territories, enforce monopolies, and maintain fleets. Those navies might protect long-distance trade or respond to piracy, but they would also place coercive power in private hands. The proposed answer is that the arrangement was probably doomed because governments tolerate powerful companies only while those companies remain subordinate. Tax revenue can make corporate strength useful for a time, yet military power that becomes political competition invites suppression.