Corporatism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative representation is given to industries or professional and economic groups. Ostensibly, the entire society is to be run by decisions collectively made by these groups. It is a form of class collaboration put forward as an alternative to class conflict and was first proposed in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum which influenced Catholic trade unions which were organised in the early twentieth century to counter the influence of trade unions founded on a socialist ideology. The Vatican's ideas were also influential in the development of fascist economic theory.
Under Fascism in Italy, employers were organized into syndicates known as "corporations" according to their industries, and these groups were given representation in a legislative body known as the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni. According to various theorists corporatism was an attempt to create a "modern" version of feudalism by merging the "corporate" interests with those of the state.
This use of the term "corporation" is not exactly equivalent to the restricted modern sense of the word. Compare corporate state and militarism. Corporate in this context is intended to convey the meaning of a "body," as in corpus. Its fundamental concept is to reflect more medieval European concepts of a whole society in which the various parts each play a part in the life of the society, just as the various parts of the body play specific parts in the life of a body.
Some elements of corporatism can be found still existing today, for example in the ILO Conference or in the Economic and Social Committee of the European Union, or the collective agreement arrangements of the Scandinavian countries.
External links
- RERUM NOVARUM ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON CAPITAL AND LABOR
- QUADRAGESIMO ANNO ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER
Today, the word corporatism is most often used to refer to tendencies in politics for legislators and administrations to be influenced or dominated by the interests of corporations rather than citizens. In this view, government decisions are seen as being influenced strongly by which sorts of policies will lead to greater profits for favored companies. In this sense of the word, corporatism is also termed corporatocracy. If there is substantial military-corporate collaboration it is often called militarism.