[CryptoPunk]

A corporation is a contractual construct. People can form one voluntarily in the absence of the government. With the exception of limited liability for tort - which should be repealed - every right that corporations are bestowed, like legal personhood in the context of contract law, can be fully justified by free market principles.

[gh-throw]

I think you're considering a broader set of things a "corporation" than I am. Wikipedia:

> A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law 'born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and recognized as such in law for certain purposes.[1]:10 Early incorporated entities were established by charter (i.e. by an ad hoc act granted by a monarch or passed by a parliament or legislature).

Webster's 1913:

> A body politic or corporate, formed and authorized by law to act as a single person, and endowed by law with the capacity of succession; a society having the capacity of transacting business as an individual.

Modern Merriam-Webster's retains essentially the same definition.

That's why I hold that position about their relationship with the rest of society, and in particular with their parent government. I'll grant some other kind of organization, not being definitionally a creation of government, may not have the same relationship.

[CryptoPunk]

>>authorized by law to act as a single person,

This can be common law, recognizing the legal authority the shareholders grant the corporate entity to act on their behalf.

There is a common law justification to treat that entity as a legal person because it acts as a single entity, as willed by the shareholders.

I am not suggesting that the corporate legal structure has never come into existence by legislation. I am just saying that the corporate structure can also emerge entirely through the common law enforcement of contracts.