3The Corporation as Feudal Estate
THE PRINCIPLE OF PROPERTY
Like a feudal estate, a corporation is considered apiece of property—not a human community—so itcan be owned and sold by the propertied class.
In searching for the source of stockholder privilege, we come around again to the incantation of that single, magical word: ownership. Because we say stockholders own corporations, they are permitted to contribute very little and take quite a lot. This word own is deceptively small and worth unpacking.
Since stockholders own corporations, implicitly (1) the corporation is an object that can be owned, (2) stockholders are sole masters of that object, and (3) they can do as they like with “their” object.
It’s an entire worldview in three letters. ...
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