Corporations are by definition persons. The “incorporate” means to “make a body” - a legal body that can act like a natural person under the law. Imagine if, s

Corporations are by definition persons. The “incorporate” means to “make a body” - a legal body that can act like a natural person under the law. Imagine if, say, the New York Times Coporation wasn’t a person. It couldn’t own property. Or enter into contracts. So no office building, unless one of the investors had a property they cared to rent to individual officers or employees. Coworking for everybody, basically. Salaries would be paid from the private accounts of individual investors. As would all expenses. If an investor ran low on funds, they would have to be replaced, quickly. All employees would be the personal servants of the executive officer, although their contracts would make clear they must serve the organization as a whole. Some industries can function like this. Maritime insurance functioned without incorporation for centuries. Even today Lloyd’s of London has some “names” which are personally liable, with no corporate veil between themselves and liability. But businesses like the New York Times Corporation can’t operate that way.