Corporations owning nations, its leaders and military and directing agenda is nothing new under the sun.

DUTCH MASTERS

What a fascinating history. Said to be founded in 1602 in what today is centered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, The Dutch East India Company (or 'VOC' ) was a trading company was the first multinational corporation with the powers of a nation-state.

The VOC was said to be the merger of six private East India companies (the original Monopoly?), mainly formed to challenge Spanish and Portuguese new world and trade dominance [ aka Vatican powers?].

This "Corporation" could maintain an army, wage war, negotiate treaties, settle colonies and dictate laws in the name of the Dutch Republic.

By 1637, the Dutch East India Company aka (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) was worth 78 million Dutch guilders (around USD $8.2 trillion!) But in just 35 years? Is it reasonable to assume and speculate that the six private companies who comprised the new Dutch East India Company were already plundering, colonizing, enslaving and enriching themselves far earlier than 1602? Like maybe throughout the 1400-1500s? Who really knows.

Their trade exchanges had to be massive. The VOC was documented to have sent over 4,700 ships to Asia, mostly bound for the two main spice trading centres at various islands in Indonesia – the Moluccas and Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) – as well as trading posts in Taiwan, Siam (Thailand), and Tonkin (northern Vietnam). Some sources (and maps) provide evidence also suggest that the Dutch East India Company also discovered a (secret?) route that enabled them to sail all the way to the west coast of South America.

Where did this mega-Corporation go? What happened to it? Some sources cite its dissolution in 1799 "due to corruption and diminishing profits". Other historical sources claim it was dissolved in 1794 the Dutch East India Company by going "bankrupt" (which sounds impossible. )

Did the Dutch East India Company and its shareholders (in 1794 (or 1799) merely just go home with their mega-wealth? OR did they go underground and create other companies and corporations from which to colonize and plunder riches under different names and identities (as is done in modern times?)

As an aside,the Dutch West India Company was established in 1621 and went defunct in 1792; It was involved in colonizing northeast US, New York City and state, CT, NJ, and parts of PA ; also the Caribbean islands. (The hand-off of Dutch NY and NJ colonies to the British East India Company is kind of suspicious, but that's another story)

Coincidentally, the British East India Company is said to have been founded in 1600, conspicuously at about the same time as the Dutch VOC. However historians tell us it officially lasted as an entity until 1873.

Between the Dutch VOC, British East India Company, the Spaniards, Portuguese and French, the 1600s was quite a century for the world's wealthy to establish corporations and company empires from which to usurp national authority and engage in raw mercantilism, legal piracy, slavery and colonialism -- all under the flag of Kingdoms and nations.