Business | Schumpeter

Elon Musk is not alone in having Delaware in his sights

Sin City does, too  

An illustration featuring a cactus, a dice, a casino chip and the sun trying to turn a tap to fill a bucket. At the same time a small man shouts through a megaphone.
Photograph: Brett Ryder

AT THE TURN of the 20th century the prime state to register businesses in America was New Jersey, home to America’s biggest trusts such as Standard Oil. Other states, including its diminutive next-door neighbour, coveted the spigot of easy money that came from business incorporation. “Little Delaware, gangrened with envy at the spectacle of the truck-patchers, clam-diggers and mosquito-wafters of New Jersey getting all the money in the country into her coffers, is determined to get her little tiny, sweet, round, baby hand into the grab-bag of sweet things,” the American Law Review, a journal, wrote at the time.

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This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Casino capitalism ”

From the March 16th 2024 edition

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