The East India Company set the template for joint-stock corporations, and the model was basically a weaponized extension of post-Norman politics. Its leadership acted like a portable aristocracy. Accountable only upward to investors and the Crown never to the people they ruled. Their mandate was extraction, not participation. Communist regimes are always pointed out, but that pure Free Markets look like the East India company is never highlighted.
That mindset carried straight into corporate governance. Joint-stock companies inherited a Norman-style hierarchy where a self-defined ruling stratum treats populations as revenue sources, not stakeholders. Legitimacy comes from charter and capital (today: job/founder title and investment), not from any connection to the community affected.
In Norman social architecture you have a ruling stratum that views itself as distinct from and superior to the alien conquered population under it, bound by obligation only to peers and superiors, not to the commons. The joint-stock corporation inherited that same operating philosophy. The “company” wasn’t conceived as part of society; it was a chartered power structure hovering above society. Local populations are revenue sources, not stakeholders. Accountability runs up the hierarchy, not down. Legitimacy comes from charter (now job title/founder title) and capital, not community integration. The company's goal is to be a mini Norman conqueror of it's specific market. The logic of Norman style extraction from a conquered people, rather than participation/obligation/upholding social norms, sits at its core. Norman style extraction first, everything else second.