The whole argument about corporations being "creatures of the law" - sure, as are sole proprietorships, partnerships, and the more creative creatures like LLCs which try to allow corporate legal benefits with the pass through tax benefits of partnerships. Similarly, the law created something called limited partners, to allow different liability rules for operators vs passive investors. Corporations are a way to facilitate capital raising. You (and Warren) assume that diluting their ownership rights with other non-owner stakeholders won't impact that.

Shareholder ownership isn't a creature of the law. Business owners get certain elements of control and returns in exchange for the risk they take. Which is significant - if the company they own goes bust, they don't get a dime until other stakeholders in the capital structure (including unpaid wages) gets all their money first. Shareholders are just owners who get the benefits and the risks of ownership. That's the market distortion Warren is talking about. What happens to priorities in the capital stack as govt imposes changes to the boardroom (I dispute your characterization here - mandates about board makeup is extremely invasive, and fundamentally changes the definition of "owner". Not just a legal change).

To give an idea of what Warren is messing with - since 911 much has been written about the economic disparity between the west and the Muslim world. I read "Crisis of Islam" by Bernard Lewis ages ago. One of his claims I recall to this day - Sharia Law prohibits "absentee ownership" of businesses. Countries that abide strictly by this and other rules against borrowing money kill their economies. Capital is simply too expensive and too unavailable.

That's what Warren wants to mess with. The market for capital. Will we also be forcing changes in ownership rights for limited partnerships, or even sole proprietorships? She uses, and you reference, this class war concept - the struggle between capital, labor, and consumers, as if these are three distinct groups in constant struggle. In reality, most of us are in all three groups, and almost all are in at least two. Who got slaughtered by the nearly 12 trillion in market cap that went up in smoke in 2008? Lots of people - big pension plans lost as much as anyone. Workers in their role as "capital". The whole concept of the defined benefit pension plan went on life support (favoring defined contribution plans instead, giving workers more control over their own capital).

That hits the core of my objections to Warren, and where very soon I may find myself on the other end of debates here from my dem (fellow anti-Trump) friends. I reject that kind of class warfare as its own kind of "us vs them" demagoguery. I don't believe the concept of a wealth gap exists as it is described to create doom and gloom predictions by those seeking power. I do believe it exists, and has even widened in recent decades of unprecedented innovation, where innovators can get enormous outsized rewards (who should have made the profits from the iPhone revolution - everyone, or the guys who dreamed it up and brought it to life?). The answer isn't "new and improved socialist distortions of capital markets" (that's what this is - govt intruding on rights of private owners - I don't know if Warren's proposals would survive constitutional review. I think not). It's removing the distortions that already exist.

Start with the tax code - perversely, it benefits the super rich. I like Trump's move to make US corp rates competitive in international markets. But on the personal side he increased complexity, and IMO benefits to himself, and increased complexity always benefits the super rich and their clever service providors who deploy their resources to devising tax planning tricks instead of truly productive activities. First thing you should do - make the tax code a pamphlet.