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The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

businessfinancing.co.uk

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Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#151

Post by vidarh »

jandrese wrote: post #100
crooked-v wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the pre-colonial population maybe didn't have a culture of setting up long running businesses This assumption of an entire continent as having a single culture is something that I find cringy at best.

Are there any pre-colonial African nations you would like to name as a counter-example? One that had a tradition of setting up and documenting long running businesses?

The big problem with finding evidence either way with respect to this is that sheer amount of destruction by colonial powers.

E.g. after the third Anglo-Ashanti war, the conquering British noted how impressive the palace was, and called out the number of books in different languages, and then they promptly burned it... So vast amounts of information about the operation of the Ashanti just went up in smoke.

Similarly they burned the entire capital city of the Benin empire to the ground.

It was not just that these empires ended; they were in many cases close to being erased from history.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#152

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Yessing wrote: post #89
microtherion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the former; that standards applied in various countries differ. E.g. the oldest "company" in Switzerland is Gasthof Sternen ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasthof_Sternen ), built around 1230, and affiliated with a monastery. Quite possibly the inn WAS in continuous operation, but I have doubts as to the continuity of the "company" behind it. It appears to have been started by the adjacent monastery, which…

for example Café M’Rabet – Tunis was created in 1630 and it is still operational till now. But it was not registered as a company at the time.

I wondered about that - perhaps the map should be "Oldest business registered with a western institution" or some such. Meaning, being known to westerners makes them more real.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#153

Post by ludamad »

dhacks wrote: post #142
thomasfoster96 wrote: post #65

This map seems to use a very variable and at times generous definition of both “company” and “still in business”. Sure, Australia Post is one of Australia’s oldest institutions if you count from the date of the establishment of its oldest predecessor (which this map does, as a Postmaster-General was first appointed for New South Wales in 1809), but a single national postal service wasn’t established until Australia i…

Reminds me how the restaurant Earl of Sandwich, which was founded in 2004 in Orlando, puts established in 1762 on their website and the front of some of their buildings [1]. Just because the "sandwich" was invented in 1762. [1]: http://paradisefoundaround.com/wp-content/uploads/disneyland...

What a tacky and misleading move

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#154

Post by ionwake »

squiggleblaz wrote: post #128
Yessing wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for example Café M’Rabet – Tunis was created in 1630 and it is still operational till now. But it was not registered as a company at the time.

But do you seriously reckon all those European businesses from the 800s were registered as a company? This map is nothing but a racist pissing match created by enlightened Europeans who've worked out some novel way of considering them better than the civilisations they trashed. It's an embarrassment.

lol

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#155

Post by heedlessly3 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #4

Interesting elements to me: - The prevalence of drinking and dining establishments amongst oldest-national businesses. - And banks / mints / financial institutions. - The relative youth of oldest-national-businesses in Africa. Most notably Equatorial Guinea with Guinea Equatorial Airlines, the country's oldest business corporation, founded in 1996. This suggests either a data artefact in which older going concerns ar…

I have a feeling that the authors of this map is biased an uninformed. I'm sure you gathered up the expert historians from each of these countries to identify the oldest business, then this map will look very different.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#157

Post by sm0ss117 »

Gonna be that guy and say that this map almost certainly has inaccuracies at least in southeast and south asia. If individual owner/operator businesses count I'm sure you can find some hole in the wall restaurant in Thailand dating before 1878. Also the fact that still operating is a requirement obviously imposes a massive colonialism penalty.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#158

Post by yitchelle »

dyingkneepad wrote: post #18
yitchelle wrote: post #14

Not flippant question, but what is considered as a business?

That's a good question, because "Casa da moeda do Brasil" is the "company" that actually prints the real money in Brazil. It's controlled by the state since forever (although the definition of 'state' changed wildly in the last 500 years, between colony, empire, dictatorship, republic, etc).

Now, that's a good "business" :-). I imagined that this is the same situation as the other mints in the other countries.

Re: The oldest company in almost every country (that is still in business)

#159

Post by YawningAngel »

jandrese wrote: post #100
crooked-v wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the pre-colonial population maybe didn't have a culture of setting up long running businesses This assumption of an entire continent as having a single culture is something that I find cringy at best.

Are there any pre-colonial African nations you would like to name as a counter-example? One that had a tradition of setting up and documenting long running businesses?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali_Empire
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