Granting companies some of the legal rights of a person turned out to be really powerful. It enabled companies to act as one entity which meant they would not become harder to deal with as they grew in size. Larger companies were therefore possible after being granted legal personhood. This raises the question what would be the effects of giving people some of the legal privileges of companies. The answer I think is even more awesome. I'll start by listing the privileges companies have that people don't:
Shares
Doesn't pay tax if it doesn't feel like it
Can commit suicide
I'm joking about the last two really. It's the first one that gets me excited. Allowing a person to create shares in their economic output would enable some really awesome things to happen. Firstly it would make it much easier to get loans since you could loan against your share value. Currently, it's only possible to loan against one's own assets. And for many people they start life with no assets so have no option but to sell their time until they have saved up the money they need. This is a large source of inequality since it penalises people born into poor families. Who already have enough disadvantages.
But potential goes a lot further than giving people access to funding. It would enable people to pay for things with shares. Now for the most part this would just be irresponsible. Paying for a holiday with shares would be a terrible idea. But paying for education or on the job training with shares makes a lot of sense since it aligns incentives properly. Typically universities don't really care that much about the quality of their education since they are payed upfront for their services. But if they were payed in shares then they directly benefit from every bit of additional earning power they give to their students. It's the perfect payment model for the education industry. And the education providers can loan against they shares they receive to cover their expenses while they wait for their students earning potential to be realised.
Another place where paying shares would be appropriate would be for on the job training. A common conundrum for companies is if they hire entry level staff members and train them to the skill level they require the newly trained staff members will tend to either quickly demand higher wages or quit for another higher paying job. Either way the company at best only benefits slightly from having trained the entry level worker. But if when hiring the worker they ask for some of share options then they stand to benefit from the training they provide no matter what the worker chooses to do in the future. As long as the training they provide results in higher wages anyway. Thus this would solve the long standing problem of it being really difficult for unskilled workers to enter fields they are interested in. Some companies might even make it their primary business model to train workers. Which would give universities some much needed competition.
A final area where personal shares would be useful would actually be for governments to gather revenue from their citizens. By allowing people to opt out of all taxes by donating a certain number of shares to their government they would align the incentives of their government with their own: that is, to maximise their long term earning ability. So the government would be incentivised to ensure the person receives a useful education and has affordable housing available to them etc...