Functional Approach to the Law of Business Associations

Abstract

The law of business associations has crystallized for the most part under the classifications of corporations, partnership and agency. Into one or more of those categories has been thrown the substantial part of the law of all of the business units-the individual proprietorship, the partnership, the limited partnership, the limited partnership association, the joint stock company, the corporation, and the business trust. The reasons for making such categories are not hard to divine. The main vehicles of business since the industrial revolution have been the corporation and the partnership. The joint stock company and the individual proprietorship were relatively eclipsed long ago. A large body of law grew up carrying the labels of partnership and corporations. In one sense it was logical that such groupings took place. Cases carrying labels are not difficult to classify; the importance of the form of the unit is apt to make the regulation of that form the focal point; the ancient stress on details of organization emphasizes form; the increasing importance of certain businesses is likely to bring into consciousness devices which are being used by business and the habit grows of thinking of the social regulation of business -in terms of the regulation of the device used. It need -hardly be mentioned that habit pyramids; that what is done soon becomes tradition; that tradition is a strong directive force.