That’s all true when you’re talking about a foundation as an organization. The foundation’s assets are another story. The assets of a regular corporation are owned by its stockholders. The assets of a foundation are owned by no person or group of persons, including the foundation’s trustees and employees. In a society in which all property is supposed to be private, this is an undesirable state of affairs. Among other things, it leaves the door wide open for a foundation’s trustees to perform an ideological takeover, and employ its assets to finance and promote values that are hostile to those of a free society.

The organization is group of private people in voluntary association. It does not have to be "owned" in the sense of having a deed to it. The organization is the people in it.

If the organization's property is private, who owns the organization? Who has shares in the organization? Who can buy or sell the organization or any part of it? No one.

People running a private organization are controlling the organization's private property. The property is neither unowned nor owned by government.

"Neither corporations nor foundations are “ephemeral constructs” any more than ownership itself is."

Sure they are. Again: can a corporation or foundation vote? No. Can they purchase property or hire people? No. Only people can do those things. Corporations are convenient containers for legal purposes - nothing more. It is only the people within the organizations who actually do anything.

What is the real purpose someone creates a corporation in the first place? Tax and legal liability. It is to shield their personal assets to some degree from business liabilities and to provide a convenient method for the government to tax you. That's about it. Foundations are created pretty much for the same reasons, they just tend to try to avoid the taxation part altogether.

"An agent is not an owner, either in an everyday sense or in a legal sense."

According to the definition you wanted to use - the Objectivist one - I can't see any real differentiation there. The definition has no limitations or exclusions for agents.

"A foundation has assets and agents but no legal owner."

I think you've constructed a straw man and now you're tilting at windmills. I'll leave you to it.

Interestingly enough, EWV, I've been convicted of unfair fantasies many times in my life.

“The assets are the private property of those organized to control them in accordance with the charter of the organization.” No they’re not, and if you ask any foundation trustees they will tell you that the fact they are trustees does not give them ownership rights. The trustees have no legal recognition of ownership, no title to a foundation or its assets. They cannot buy or sell the foundation, or split it into shares for that purpose. They cannot list it as a personal asset. They cannot pledge it as collateral for a personal loan, or will it to heirs upon their death. The assets of a foundation are the private property of no one. Both the facts cited above and the legal framework giving rise to a foundation support this conclusion.

Those running for-profit corporations do the same thing. That does not make them owners. They are simply acting as employees of the true owners, the stockholders. Foundations likewise have employees, but no true owners, no one that holds title to their assets.

You said that they are fiction. They are not. The assets are the private property of those organized to control them in accordance with the charter of the organization. That property is not un-owned and not government owned. It doesn't make any difference that there are no shareholders. Repeating over and over that they are fiction and that the assets are not private property, without regard to what the concept refers to in reality, is unconvincing.

Whether or not a foundation would exist in a society with better laws depends on the purpose of those who establish them. There would ultimately be no need for a tax shelter, but an individual or group of individuals may still want to establish a foundation as an organization to promote some ideas or other purpose.

Ownership is the right of use and disposal. That is what those running the organization do.

Foundations are non-government.

What definition of ownership are you employing? The “people acting in accordance with the charter of the foundation” are employees of the foundation, not owners. Just like “people acting in accordance with the mission of a profit-making corporation” are employees, not owners (unless they have stock).

Foundations do exist; this I don’t dispute. My question is whether they should exist in a laissez-faire capitalist society in which all property is private. Ayn Rand had to work within the confines of the legal system, and the tax-exempt status likely was a primary reason that she created a foundation to promote her ideas, and why later Objectivist-oriented foundations were formed. In a more consistent capitalist system this wouldn’t have been necessary.

A foundation is a corporation, but a corporation without owners. It is not synonymous with the employees running it, and its assets are not private property. Foundations as well as many other organized entities legally existing in a mixed economy would not be appropriate in a society based on Objectivist principles.

In an Objectivist society, ALL entities would be private except for those explicitly part of government.

You can share the proceeds in the Foundation for Fictional Lottery Winnings. Since there are no profits, you can organize it as a non-profit and not have to pay fictional taxes on fictional winnings. But you can make up for the loss through volume by doing this many times established under a fictional Holding Company to pretend to run all of them. But watch out for anti-trust laws throwing you in non-fictional jail for monopolizing, unfair fantasy, restraint of fantasy, and collusion to pretend, which is a worse crime than pretending to collude.

The owners of the assets are the people acting in accordance with the charter of the foundation that organizes them. There are no stock holders owning shares of the foundation. There are different kinds of corporations, acting in accordance with different provisions under law.

A foundation is a corporation. The "foundation itself" is an abstraction referring to the real people running it for a specific purpose in accordance with rules specified and delimited under law, not a fictional Platonic foundation-hood. Like any organization it has obvious referents in reality and serves a cognitive purpose in grouping them. When Ayn Rand started The Foundation for the New Intellectual as a 501(c)3 non-profit tax exempt corporation to promote her own ideas she was not fantasizing in contradiction with her own principles. That foundation continued and was intended to continue after her death; it was dissolved, over 10 years after she died, because it was not needed in parallel with ARI, another foundation that is not a fiction.

since it is "other peoples' money," I can be generous............!"

Okay, my previous post was unclear. Let me rephrase it using fewer pronouns. What group owns a foundation? What group has title to a foundation? What group can buy or sell a foundation, in whole or in part? As far as I can see, no such group exists. A foundation, under the terms of its legal recognition, can have no owner or group of owners. No person or group can claim title to a foundation. A foundation can not be bought or sold or divided into shares that can be bought or sold. Foundation employees can and do control the assets and the day-to-day operations of a foundation, but these employees are not owners, any more than employees of a corporation are owners of that corporation simply because these people are employed by that corporation. A foundation has no actual owners and thus is not private (privately owned) property as Objectivists use the term.

Those running the foundation are members of a real group, a group consisting of foundation employees, but this group is not the foundation itself. Likewise, those running a corporation are members of a real group, a group consisting of corporation employees, but this group is not the corporation itself. A corporation is a legally recognized entity that has employees (the group you refer to) and also has owners (the stockholders). Thus its assets are private property. A foundation is a legally recognized entity that has employees (the group you refer to) but no owners. Thus its assets are not private property.

Which is why you should have the same concern, as you do.

The group of people are those who are running the organization. They acquire and dispose of assets all the time. The property is the assets, not the people. Of course the people can't be bought and sold. When an individual is sole owner of an asset he can't be bought or sold either. Private property ownership of an asset does not require that. When a business corporation is sold, the assets are sold giving the buyer control in the form of control or a degree of control over the corporation.

As corporations foundations are a group of people. They are real, not fictitious.

And properly so.

True, but foundations are not owned jointly either. What group owns them? What group has title to them? What group can buy or sell them, in whole or in part? As far as I can see, no such group exists.