It helps companies immeasurably that the law in the United States and in many other countries confers upon them the same rights as human beings. But even more important than the legal protections gained by faux personhood status are the political, social, and cultural benefits. If a corporation is part of the community, then it is entitled to the same freedoms available to others, and the same presumption of noninterference that society appropriately affords real people. Especially because corporations work so aggressively and intentionally to obscure the point, it is crucial to draw attention to the corporation as an institution with unique powers, motivations, and attributes, and to point to the basic differences between human beings and the socially constituted and authorized institutions called corporations. Corporations have perpetual life.
Corporations can be in two or more places at the same time.
Corporations cannot be jailed. Corporations have no conscience or sense of shame. Corporations have no sense of altruism, nor willingness to adjust their behavior to protect future generations. There are no limits, natural or otherwise, to corporations' potential size. Because of their political power, they are able to define, or at very least substantially affect, the civil and criminal regulations that define the boundaries of permissible behavior.