https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_...

"First, shareholders do not own business corporations, nor do they own the assets of the corporate entities... Shareholders own shares."

Somewhere back in the eighties, it became popular in the business community to say that the purpose of a company is to maximise shareholder value. That opinion and others like it have now so saturated society that people take it as received truth, but it's not. Likewise the idea that shareholders are owners.

Now, as in many things, laws do change over time and if enough people continue to believe this hard enough for long enough, there will eventually be enough case law that it ultimately become true. One day, it might be true, and law. That day has not yet come.

But I don't get the "shareholders do not own business corporations" bit. Would a sole owner "own" a business corporation? Do real estate owners "own" real estate or do they own "bundles of intangible rights"?

Well, why would they? At risk of horrifically simplifying things, I have a company, I decide I want some more money. I sell you the right to vote in some things that concern the company, and I sell you a share of any dividends that get paid out in the future. That's what you get. Do you now own the company? Do you own the company assets? I didn't sell that to you. I sold you the right to vote in some company meetings and decision making processes, and I sold you a piece of any future dividends that get paid out to you and others like you. Doesn't sound like "owning" something to me.

What does that mean? You don’t “own” the company, do you?

If the company is just me and a bag of tools, fixing people's cars on their driveway, do I own that company? What does it even mean for me to "own" it?

An opinion of mine the ownership of a company through stocks is secondary to stocks being a quasi-cash financial instrument like bonds.

If you scroll down to "Significance", you can read for yourself that it's by no means universally accepted ("that this interpretation has not represented the law in most states for some time").

Let's come forwards a little; as the U.S. Supreme Court recently stated, "modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so."

Where this is basically going is that the common belief - that there is some clear, absolute law that totally says the shareholders are the owners and the company is all about giving money to them - simply isn't true.

Here's some legal people on the subject; https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/academics/clarke_business_...

Key phrases include "shareholders do not own business corporations, nor do they own the assets of the corporate entities".

Now, there are other opinions, but the very fact that this is an ongoing discussion suggests strongly that it is not as cut and dried as you claim.

Now, some companies sell shares that don't have voting rights (e.g. Google, Facebook). Those are a bit more nuanced. Though even in those cases, there are voting shares, they're just not traded in the public markets. So, the statement that the company is owned/controlled by its shareholders remains correct.