Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T23:53:44.356Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Over the Counter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Like the financial mart from which it derives its name, OVER THE COUNTER is designed for the types of exchanges not handled elsewhere. This feature has its origin in a demand among readers of business history for a place to compare ideas, voice comments on published articles and reviews, and publish research essays. Contributions are invited. The Editor and Advisory Board reserve the right to decide whether, on the basis of general interest, pertinence, and merit, such contributions will be published. OVER THE COUNTER will appear as often as the volume of contributions may dictate.

Type
Over the Counter
Information
Business History Review , Volume 34 , Issue 4 , Winter 1960 , pp. 495 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sombart held that the “acquisition principle,” characteristic of capitalism, “urges toward the maximization of profit.” See selections from Der Moderne Kapitalismus reproduced in Lane, Frederic C. and Riemersma, Jelle C., eds., Enterprise and Secular Change (Homewood, Illinois, 1953), pp. 25–40 (esp. p. 38)Google Scholar.

2 “Business Entrepreneurs, Their Major Functions and Related Tenets,” The Journal of Economic History (June, 1959), pp. 269–270.

3 Risk and Technological Innovation: American Manufacturing Methods During the Nineteenth Century (Ithaca, 1959)Google Scholar; also see the same author's “Risk, Entrepreneurial Caution, and Business History,” in Business History Review (Winter, 1958), pp. 455–459.

4 Tooker, Elva, Nathan Trotter, Philadelphia Merchant, 1787–1863 (Cambridge, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “Nothing is clearer throughout Trotter's business career than his prudence, caution, and moderation” (p. 57).

5 Hedges, James B., The Browns of Providence Plantations (Cambridge, 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hedges found “many illustrations of the care with which the Browns gathered all possible information before embarking upon a new venture” (p. 330).

6 Bruchey, Stuart, Robert Oliver, Merchant of Baltimore, 1783–1819 (Baltimore, 1956)Google Scholar. Oliver repeatedly showed his concern for security as well as profit potentiality (see pp. 364–365).

7 (New York, 1959). “However, because it is so respectable, conservatism may be the term adopted to cover such characteristics as timidity or complacency” (p. 527).

8 Letter to Francis Johonnot, Feb. 15, 1784 (Letter Book, Johnson, Johonnot & Co., 1783–1785, in the Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore).

9 Virginia D. Harrington points out that both Sombart and Max Weber considered the growth of consignment trading “the outstanding feature of eighteenth century trading” (The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution [New York, 1935], p. 68)Google Scholar; For the importance of agents in the trade between Amsterdam and the ports of England, Spain, and other countries, see Wilson, Charles, Anglo-Dutch Commerce and Finance in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1941), p. 11Google Scholar; also see the present author's Robert Oliver, esp. chap. 3.

10 Evans, “Business Entrepreneurs,” p. 250.

11 “Risk,” of course, is in part a statistical and in part an accounting concept. Insurance mortality tables, or numbers of captures of American merchantmen by an enemy in wartime, illustrate the statistical aspect of risk-taking. The accounting aspect concerns the cost of a risk in relation to total assets, or, where considerations of liquidity are important, to fixed capital. It is obviously less “risky” for a large corporation to sustain the costs of many innovations than it would be for a small firm, where the cost of change might bear a high ratio to available resources.

12 In a letter to the author, Prof. Arthur H. Cole suggests the possible usefulness of a theory of “strategic risk-taking and tactical risk-reduction,” citing as illustration the case of the East India Company, which, having sent vessels to trade with the Far East, proceeded to attempt to minimize unnecessary risks. Prof. Cole also cites striking examples from broader human fields: “The Wright brothers and then others decide to try flying; and then everyone goes to work to make flying safe.” Having decided as a nation to go to war we then “marshall our doctors and nurses and ambulances so that fatalities are kept to a minimum.” It seems to me this suggestion may be pertinent to many contexts.