Corporatism
[1] Corporatism became one of the main tenets of Italian fascism, and Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime in Italy advocated the total integration of divergent interests into the state for the common good.
[5][6] Corporatist ideas have been expressed since ancient Greek and Roman societies, and have been integrated into Catholic social teaching and Christian democratic political parties.
They have been paired by various advocates and implemented in various societies with a wide variety of political systems, including authoritarianism, absolutism, fascism, liberalism, and social democracy.
[11] After the 5th-century fall of Rome and the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, corporatist organizations in western Europe became largely limited to religious orders and to the idea of Christian brotherhood — especially within the context of economic transactions.
[13] After the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789), the existing absolutist corporatist system in France was abolished due to its endorsement of social hierarchy and special "corporate privilege".
[15] Countering the reactionaries were the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760- 1825), whose proposed "industrial class" would have had the representatives of various economic groups sit in the political chambers, in contrast to the popular representation of liberal democracy.
Tönnies claims that organic communities based upon clans, communes, families and professional groups are disrupted by the mechanical society of economic classes imposed by capitalism.
He believed that the existing industrial capitalist division of labour caused "juridical and moral anomie", which had no norms or agreed procedures to resolve conflicts and resulted in chronic confrontation between employers and trade unions.
[30] Durkheim believed that this anomie caused social dislocation and felt that by this "it is the law of the strongest which rules, and there is inevitably a chronic state of war, latent or acute".
Liberal corporatists believe that inclusion of all members in the election of management in effect reconciles "ethics and efficiency, freedom and order, liberty and rationality".
[35] A fascist corporation can be defined as a government-directed confederation of employers and employees unions, with the aim of overseeing production in a comprehensive manner.
Theoretically, each corporation within this structure assumes the responsibility of advocating for the interests of its respective profession, particularly through the negotiation of labor agreements and similar measures.
The 1920 Charter of Carnaro gained much popularity as the prototype of a "corporative state", having displayed much within its tenets as a guild system combining the concepts of autonomy and authority in a special synthesis.
[38] Subsequently, the Labour Charter of 1927 was implemented, thus establishing a collective agreement system between employers and employees, becoming the main form of class collaboration in the fascist government.
Italian Fascism involved a corporatist political system in which the economy was collectively managed by employers, workers and state officials by formal mechanisms at the national level.
This total consideration was the inspiration for their use of the term "totalitarian", described without coercion (which is connoted in the modern meaning) in the 1932 Doctrine of Fascism as thus: When brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.
Much of the corporatist influence upon Italian fascism was partly due to the Fascists' attempts to gain endorsement by the Roman Catholic Church that itself sponsored corporatism.
[44] Although Salazar admired Mussolini and was influenced by his Labour Charter of 1927,[45] he distanced himself from fascist dictatorship, which he considered a pagan Caesarist political system that recognised neither legal nor moral limits.
The fascist dictatorship tends towards a pagan Caesarism, towards a state that knows no limits of a legal or moral order, which marches towards its goal without meeting complications or obstacles.
All parties would be banned, and members of parliament would be elected by vote from corporate groups representing different sectors; Agriculture, Industry and Public servants, free trades, etc.
Neo-corporatism is a democratic form of corporatism which favors economic tripartism, which involves strong labour unions, employers' associations and governments that cooperate as "social partners" to negotiate and manage a national economy.
[50] Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan in their essay "China, Corporatism, and the East Asian Model" describe Chinese corporatism as follows:[51] [A]t the national level the state recognizes one and only one organization (say, a national labour union, a business association, a farmers' association) as the sole representative of the sectoral interests of the individuals, enterprises or institutions that comprise that organization's assigned constituency.
[55][56] Under the Dutch Polder Model, the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (Sociaal-Economische Raad, SER) was established by the 1950 Industrial Organisation Act (Wet op de bedrijfsorganisatie).
[61] The Nordic countries have the most comprehensive form of collective bargaining, where trade unions are represented at the national level by official organizations alongside employers' associations.
