the.com/corporation
A person in the eyes of the law, with none of the guilt and all of the rights.
means A business or organization that's legally treated as a single entity, able to own property, sign contracts, sue and be sued, separately from the people who run it.
from From Latin corpus, 'body' — via corporare, 'to form into a body,' and the late Latin corporatio, 'a body formed into one.' Medieval law borrowed the word for guilds, towns, and churches that needed to act as a single legal 'body' outstanding any one member's life — property held by the group, not the person. That trick of giving a body of people a body in law is exactly what survives today: the corporation as an artificial person, born of paperwork, that can outlive every human who ever worked there.
- legal status
- treated as an immortal individual since the 1800s
- liability shield
- owners risk only their investment, not their homes
- first ones
- created by royal charter to colonize, not compete
- personhood ruling
- US courts extended some constitutional rights to corporations