The Corporation2003

Ray Anderson:
The modern corporation has grown out of the industrial age. The industrial age began in 1712 when an Englishman named Thomas Newcomen invented a steam driven pump to pump water out of the English coal mine, so the English coal miners could get more coal to mine, rather than hauling buckets of water out of the mine. It was all about productivity, more coal per man-hour. That was the dawn of the industrial age. And then it became more steel per man-hour, more textiles per man-hour, more automobiles per man-hour, and today, it's more chips per man-hour, more gizmos per man-hour. The system is basically the same, producing more sophisticated products today.