There is non-voting and voting stock. If you buy non-voting stock or bonds you are either buying some of the corps productivity, or lending them money, respectively. Neither should generate any responsibility for the actions of the company, since neither gives you the ability to change the company's policy (other than taking your money away). Voting stock, _does_ create a level of responsibility that should be legally binding as well as morally binding.
I am glad this topic came up. I was going to write an essay considering the idea of dissolving all corporations in favor of partnerships, with both silent and standard partners. The primary changes that would occur would be that the barrier against personal fiduciary responsibility would be removed and the corporation's status as a legal person would be revoked.
This idea comes from the inherent dangers that limited liability has brought forth. The corporation is currently an entity that has all the rights of a natural person, and few of the responsibilities. The corporate person, if it becomes insolvent, can declare bankruptcy without any of the penalties that the natural person faces. The corporation merely dies and _can_ be replaced by another with the same directors, since the bankruptcy does not follow the individuals within the company. There are human issues that would tend to make finding investors difficult in this situation, but such issues can be easily overcome with a bit of deception. The worst of these cases are when a corporation sets up a shell company from which it borrows significant amounts of money. If the game is played well, the shell company can obtain the assets of the bankrupt company ahead of the stockholders, bankers, distributors, publishers, etc. As such, since a corporation cannot be held responsible in the same way a natural person can, a corporation should not be considered a natural person, and a corporation should not be able to shield its directors and prime stockholders from fiduciary responsibility.
The pragmatic concern that remains is that the limited liability corporation encourages much faster growth and a much wealthier economy due to such removal of liability. This is probably true, but since when does expedience and profit stand above the law? I have not been able to find any justification for the existence of the corporate structure in the constitution or in any other limited governmental law.
The original corporations were public companies incorporated under severe restrictions by the local government and contract-bound to serve the community which granted it the incorporation and the many benefits that accompanied it, such as use of public lands, eminent domain, and monopolies. This may seem like a socialist affair, but it was strictly within contract law and was intended to be an entity outside of normal capitalistic endeavors.
If someone can demolish my argument, I'd be happy to see it, since something seems wrong about it somehow. So far everyone I've discussed it with has been unable to dismantle it, even though they disagreed with the solution.