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.
Gabriele D’Annunzio and anarcho-syndicalist Alceste de Ambris incorporated much of corporative philosophy in their Constitution of Fiume.
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 Revolution and the laissez faire economics of Adam Smith. In Germany and elsewhere there was a distinct aversion among rulers to allow unrestricted capitalism, owing to the feudalist and aristocratic tradition of giving state privileges to the wealthy and powerful.
Under Fascism in Italy, employers and employees 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 neofeudalism.
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 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.