Here's a section for a Biology text I'm writing for some fifth-graders here in Heck:

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When people ask me about incorporation I frequently resort to the analogy of the snail.

See, here's this animate string of muscular mucus and here's this hollow calciferous contraption it drags around, and it's fairly easy to think of them as separate items until you actually physically separate them from each other, and then all animation stops. And then there are slugs, which seem to be exactly like snails, except without the baggage. And then there are crustaceans and bugs who are like snails in tiny little robot suits of armor. And so on.

Some people die if you take them out of their houses. Some people get by okay. It's weird if you think about it too long. But are houses actually alive?

No? How about your hand, then? If you get your hand cut off, it eventually stops moving (although what it really does is degenerate into the property of all the opportunistic biomass that's been living on it since your mother ceded it to you, at least until scavengers come along). The rest of you has a significant chance of getting along okay without it. So the math says a house (if not any particular house) is more a critical part of you than your hand. Unless you're a slug. So to speak.

And then there are other people. Some people get by without other people just fine, and some people wither and die. Are they part of you or not? Perhaps in the generic, interchangeable way that a house, but not a particular house, is a necessary part of you?

But the people, if you're the sort to need people, are only part of the picture. The rest of it is the interface between you and the other people, which might be something like a café or a church or an office or a computer or telephone. Or bylaws, or a constitution, or a bible, or a corporate charter. Or a really good story or movie a certain set of people really enjoys. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for instance. If I needed and example to prove that it hardly matters what the interface actually is, I could hardly do better than The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Interfaces are in the same general category as houses. The specifics are unimportant as long as certain minimum standards are met, although the standards themselves vary per individual. Otherwise we'd already have the perfect interface and all be one huge superorganism. Except for a few slugs.

So the interface is alive like a house is alive like a snail's shell is alive, shaped by hammers on either side of the walls. For a snail, the shell is shaped by the snail itself and the environment that wears it down and smoothes it out. Your house is shaped by you and the others that share it while the weather and gravity and the sun try to take it down. The Interface (i.e., the set of all possible interfaces) is shaped by you on this side and everyone else on the other. It's amazing we aren't crushed down or squeezed out more often than we are.

It's arguable that the interface is more important than the people. The people are just walking lumps that, were it not for the interface, would just push you down and eat your lunch. Rules, laws, conventions, language and vocabulary are all part of the interface. Without the interface we're all direct competitors for one another's resources in an amoeba-eat-amoeba world.

The interface, like a snail's shell, is made of stuff we accrete and excrete, all substances and messages and substances with messages. A brick says "stay out." A door says "come in, but only if I invite you." A set of laws brings around a couple of helpers if people show up who have problems understanding the basic messages of bricks and doors.

Understanding interfaces well enough to design, build, and tweak them is critical to not getting crushed or pushed out. It's why artists and communicators are selected for reproductive success. If you're no good at it, attract and groom someone who is and keep him or her as a member of your tribe. It's pretty much the only reason lawyers get laid.

Corporations are houses made of paper and ink, an interface between you and the other people -- and other corporations and governments and such -- who want to push you down and eat your lunch. Stuff left in the house is to be protected even when you're not there, and the house's stuff is separate from the stuff you keep in your pockets. Incorporation keeps the house alive should you ever feel like moving out and keeps you alive should something ever happen to destroy the house. The set of rules governs how people in the house get along and how they share the rent.

However, a corporation shouldn't hide criminals from the law when they've committed a crime any more than a house should. Nor should a corporation protect your assets from taxation. Your assets are your own; any assets being protected belong to the corporation, not to you, and you shouldn't have access to those assets until you get paid.

A corporation shouldn't have any more political clout than a house should. Nor should it vote. A corporation should own no more than it needs to in order to ensure its own continued existence.

But it's just an interface. Somewhere inside the shell is a creature or collection of creatures who are responsible for its actions.

Just like for the local Rocky Horror troupe.