Corporatism Historical Meaning Of The Term Contemporary Meaning

Historically, corporatism or corporativism (Italian corporativismo) is a political system in which legislative power is given to corporations that represent economic, industrial, and professional groups. Unlike pluralism, in which many groups must compete for control of the state, in corporatism, certain unelected bodies take a critical role in the decision-making process. This original meaning was not connected with the specific notion of a business corporation, being a rather more general reference to any incorporated body. The word "corporatism" is derived from the Latin word for body, corpus.

Ostensibly, the entire society is to be run by decisions made by these corporate 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.

One early and important theorist of corporatism was Adam Müller , an advisor to Prince Metternich in what is now eastern Germany and Austria. Müller propounded his views as an antidote to the twin "dangers" of the egalitarianism of the French RevolutionThe period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring. While France wo and the laissez faire economics of Adam SmithThis article is about the 18th-century economist. For other people of the same name, see Adam Smith (disambiguation). Adam Smith Date of birth June 5, 1723 (baptism) Kirkcaldy Fife, Scotland Date of death July 17, 1790 (illness) Edinburgh, Scotland Occupa. In Germany and elsewhere there was a distinct aversion among rulers to allow unrestricted capitalism, owing to the feudalistThis page relates to medieval Europe. Compare feudal Japan at the entry Tokugawa shogunate''. Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum itself borrowed from a Germanic root fehu a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held and aristocraticAristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an "upper class" known as aristocrats . The Greek origins of the word aristocracy imply the meaning of "rule by the best". This inevitably means those with the power to hold wealth, tradition of giving state privileges to the wealthy and powerful.

Under FascismBenito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler Fascism (in Italian, fascismo , capitalized, refers to the right-wing authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The name comes from fascia which may mea in Italy, business owners, employees, trades-people, professionals, and other economic classes were organized into 22 guilds, or associations, 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. Also see neofeudalismNeofeudalism is a pejorative term used by some critics to describe the policies of various right-wing politicians, particularly those in the American Republican Party. The justification is that government policies are allegedly instituted with the specifi.

This use of the term " corporationA corporation is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a natural person. Civil law systems may refer to corporations as "moral persons;" they may also go by the name "SA" (anonymous society) or so" 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 purpose 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.

Elements of corporatism may also be found in the United States, where corporations representing many different groups exist to influence legislation through lobbying. There are corporations representing, for example, organized-labor, educators, gun-rights advocates, and business interests. While these corporations have no membership in any legislative body, they can often wield considerable power over law-makers.

2 Contemporary meaning of the term

Today, corporatism or neo-corporatism is used in reference to tendencies in politics for legislators and administrations to be influenced or dominated by the interests of business enterprises (limited liability corporations). The influence by other types of organizations, such as those representing organized labor, is relatively minor. 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 or the military-industrial complex.

Corporatism is also used to describe a condition of corporate-dominated globalization. Points enumerated by users of the term in this sense include the prevalence of very large, multinational corporations that freely move operations around the world in response to corporate, rather than public, needs; the push by the corporate world to introduce legislation and treaties which would restrict the abilities of individual nations to restrict corporate activity; and similar measures to allow corporations to sue nations over "restrictive" policies, such as a nation's environmental regulations that would restrict corporate activities.

Free Market theorists like Ludwig von Mises would describe corporatism as anathema to their vision of capitalism. In the kind of capitalism such theorists advocate, what has been called the "night-watchman" state, the government's role in the economy is restricted to preventing force or fraud from disrupting the autonomous operation of the free market. The market is trusted to provide. Under corporatism, it is not, instead being systematically manipulated to deliver goods to political constituencies.

In the United States, some [1] argue that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were an unprecedented jump towards a corporate state. However, this ignores the long history of narrow economic interests controlling the democratic decision-making process in America. In recent times, the profusion of lobby groups and the increase in campaign contributions has led to widespread controversy and the McCain Feingold act. American corporatism is evidenced in the close ties between members of the Bush Administration and many large corporations, such as Halliburton.

John Ralston Saul argues that most Western societies are best described as corporatist states, run by a small elite of professional and interest groups, that exclude political participation from the citizenry.

Critics of capitalism often argue that any form of capitalism would eventually devolve into corporatism, due to the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands.

A permutation of this term is corporate globalism.

3 Quotes

"Fascism should more accurately be named corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

4 Related Topics

5 External links

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1 Historical meaning of the term