But it doesn't; no collective entity is equivalent to its pieces. In law or in practice. It's only an analogy.

Let me put it another way: companies don’t exist, they can’t act or think.

Why should human beings, when at work, not have all of their human rights?

I have to guess at what you're referring to, since you're not specific, but let's say for example, you're asking why a company should be regulated in hiring and firing, since freedom of association is a human right.

The obvious answer, to me, is that the hiring and firing involves the abstraction of the company, and is not predominantly a product of a human, but a system. When a manager fires someone, they're not acting as an individual human being, just as when a police officer coerces or shoots someone they aren't doing it based on universal rules for people.

Your argument makes more sense when applied to a sole proprietor. And I think that the legal system recognizes this sort of thing because it makes sense. For instance, if you are renting out a room in your home, you aren't held to the same non-discrimination requirements (in the US) as otherwise.

> just as when a police officer coerces or shoots someone they aren't doing it based on universal rules for people

Are you sure about that?

Yes?

It's a very common if not universal complaint among libertarian anarchist types that police and/or other government employees shouldn't be subject to different rules from the rest of us. It seems obvious that like it or not, they are in present society.

I'm not suggesting I'm in favor or against it, just acknowledging that the rules for what's acceptable depend on what collective entity you're part of. It doesn't seem peculiar to me if there are always non-individual responsibilities to go with non-individual powers.

As the law is written, police officers in the US are not allowed to shoot or kill people in circumstances where non-police cannot.

This is why you hear the common police trope of “I feared for my life”.

In practice, of course, the prosecutors will aggressively prosecute people defending their own homes from intruders, and fail to prosecute police engaging in premeditated murder; but that of course is a different story. The legal framework, in theory, provides them no special privileges to kill.

The police, by law, are allowed to create circumstances that non-police are not.

However, even if they weren't, it's irrelevant to my point, that people, including but not limited to the police, have powers that come from their membership in an abstract entity, and it's perfectly natural for them to have regulation of those privileges as well.