Corporations posed a new problem, not only to people but also to states. Companies could span national borders and undermine autocratic and even democratic influence. Governments attempted to regulate such companies to protect social order and were successful to some extent. However, the number and size of companies grew and they were, and still are, able to evade much of a nation state’s socialising power.
Therefore, many people hypothesised that capital and control needed to be held by the state. These views are broadly categorised as socialist. They are characterised by the nationalisation of means of production and the distribution of the economic surplus evenly across society.
However, most socialist states collapsed. This is because planned management was not as efficient as market forces at coordinating economies. Also, the system required the creation of an upper class of economic distributors. The result was less efficiency and even greater inequality than had previously existed.
However, while socialist structures were too inefficient to survive, corporate structures based on the pursuit of profit continued to perpetuate social imbalance. As a result, other attempts were made to temper the capitalist system such as cooperatives. These are characterised by democratic governance and the redistribution of profits to members.
While socially beneficial, their rules, in particular the inability to buy and sell shares, make the attraction of external capital extremely difficult. The result is that only a small subsection of business today is carried out by cooperatives. However, while these models have not fundamentally changed, interest in them is resurfacing.