Regardless of what political views one has I feel its important to not misuse words that are concrete and precise in nature to badly. One such word is “corporatism”, a word that is very abused, yet very precise. I will give you a example of the abuse of the word corporatism here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12017.htm
So what does the creator of this movie think corporatism is? Is it corporatism when the state buys equipment from private firms? Is it health-corporatism if the state buys medicall equipment from a privately owned company to improve its hospitals? Is it corporatism if the state signs a deal with a private firm where they promise to deliver something over a so and so long period of time, and the state promise to pay, ore is the war in terror it self corporatist? Perhaps war is corporatism?
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To answer these questions, and perhaps light up the dark and mysterious room of corporatism a little, I have decided to write this blogg – so that if corporatism, ore “war-corporatism” actually arrives, we will know what it looks like. There are two types of corporatism. One is called state-corporatism wich is the original doctrine fascist, another is called society-corporatism witch is a different model, developed by social democrats in order to work in a social democratic society. Both social democratic corporatism and fascist corporatism is to leftwinged to be pursued by a rightwing liberalist party like GOP. This blog is not about the corporatism of social democracy, but I will explain very briefly what it is any way: The corporatism of social democracy means that the big national umbrella organisation of labour meets the big national umbrella organisation of employees, and the representative of the state once a year. When they meet, very big issues such as a national minimum wage is set by the two unions (bosses vs workers) with the state as a broker between the two. Social democratic corporatism exists in Norway, and some other countries, but it does not exist in liberal countries where the state does not like the idea of minimum wages, and some other regulations, and wants the free market to take care of it self. Even though social democratic corporatism is very limited compared to its fascist counterpart, we see even here that corporatism does not mix well with liberalism, thus corporatism is not a policy of the liberal right.
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Fascist state-corporatism:
The ideal of fascism is to end class struggle and create a policy that both the working classes and the upper classes can live with. A way to do this is to put the elected representatives from the labour unions, and the employees unions into corporations, together with representatives from the consumers, (This can be a patient organisation for a health-corporation, the students and parents associations for a educational corporation, ore something similar for a food-corporation) the state, and experts (elected either by the state, ore a independent expert-association) Each corporation will have between 80 and 120 members, and when the corporation is gathered (I think the Italian word is “corporatzione” but when translated into the english “corporation” that is also the word for “big business” people get confused. But a fascist corporation is not the same as a big firm) it will have one third employees representation, one third employers (labour union) representation, one third experts, state and consumer representation. The corporation will discuss policy, and in the end it will vote over the final preposition that the minister and the head of the corporation (elected by the corporation) agrees on. After a proposal has a majority veto it will be taken into the corporativ counsil, where is needs a majority vote for all the heads of corporations. This is how it worked in fascist Italy, and fascist Portugal (but not in Nazi Germany, where they had no corporations) but different fascist politicians and intellectuals have alternative views on how corporatism should be. Some wants the corporation (and not the head of state) to elect the minister, some want only labour-union representation, thus giving all power to the workers, instead of a 30/30/30 power balance between the expert-state-consumer group, and the labour union and employees group. Fascists with this view is also called national-syndicalists, and are considered the left-wing of fascism. Since the corporations are divided according to industry, and proffession, not actions – it can be no such thing as a “war corporation” but war-corporatism is still possible, I will explain, but first I will post the list of the italian 22 corporations to increase your understanding of the political system:
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The twentytwo corporations where:
wines and oils, fishing, wood, textile products, clothing, metals, mechanics, chemicals, combustible liquids and fuels, prints and paper, constructions, water, gas and electricity, industries, glass and ceramics, internal communications, sea and air, hospitality, theatres, professions and art, providence and credit. In Portugal they only had eleven corporations under Salazar, and in the BUF (British union of fascists) proposal for a corporative England, there where 26 corporations – so no fascist country or movement has shared exactly the same corporative plan. It is important to underline that this form of government is not liberal, and thus not suit laizess-faire capitalism, ore “extreme right” in the economic or social meaning of the word. If the free market takes care of everything, there is not need for corporatism. There was no corporatism under Pinochets government in Chile, wich was a more rightwinged dictatorship than Mussolini`s and Salazars.
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And so over to war-corporatism:
For some industries, like perhaps industries, sea and air, mechanics, metals, perhaps also clothing and some others, the military might become a important consumer of the goods produced during wartime, or while preparing for war. Thus the buyers from the military will have seats in these corporations. A important point in corporatism is that dialogue and the process towards making decisions that have a impact on any given industry must happen in the open, where the leaders of the different labour, bosses, consumer, experts, and state interests can take part in it, and then inform the people who have elected them into the corporation what has been decided and why after it is done. Because of that, dialogue between the army consumers (among other civilian consumer groups) and the different producers happens in the corporation. The state must explain why it is going to war, and get a approval for money spent on uniforms ore tanks ore whatever, specialy if such huge contracts will raise prices for the civilian consumers.
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Why war?
Fascist Italy went to war with nazi Germany, and thus some of the corporations probably had a big military presence (im Not sure, but probably, Its difficult to find got info on this issue, since not many people care about it) Why did they go to war? While corporatism gives labour unions and workers rights and co-decition power they can only dream about under liberal governments, (or the Bush administration pictured as a corporative government in the shallow propaganda film at the start of this blogg) fascisms weakness was that foreign policy was left completely in the hands of the leader, and since there is no free press under fascism (another fascist ideal is that the nation is a organic unit where quarrels over policy as far as possible is sorted out in the party-machinery and the corporations, and this ideal does not allow a free press) Mussolini was both able to decide that it was a good idea to support Nazi-Germany, and then use the press to promote it as the right thing to do. Some of the party leaders protested, but Mussolini was not fired from his job as head of state before the allied invation in 43.
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Why was Mussolini fired while Hitler was not?
The grand council is the highest authority in a fascist state. Here the leaders of the party branches, the most important ministers, and some ore all of the corporative leaders are present (only some in Italy, but I favor a system where they are all present, making the grand council a 50/50 split between corporative and party representation). They must meet and decide every changes of laws that are proposed by the head of state, and every big decision. Mussolini never got a majority vote to start the war, since it was based on a old deal with Germany (The pact of steel) saying that Italy was obligated to come to Germanys aid if Germany was attacked, but in 1943 the grand council gathered and fired him. Mussolini was replaced by a anti-fascist named Bagdoglio that ended the regime, but many of the people who voted him to power didn’t know about his anti-fascist political stance, so they did not know that by doing so they not only replaced the head of state, but ended fascism in Italy. Something similar to the grand council did not exist in Germany where the state and the party was based on the nazi fuhrer-prinzipp, wich says that the head of state answers to no one, and is responsible to no one. For that reason, no official organ had to legitimate power to fire Hitler, and by voting a party based on the fuhrer-prinzipp to power, the German people created a system where the leader could only be replaced if he died, a mistake that had disastrous consequences for the German people. If such a organ had existed, Hitler had been fired and arrested in 1943, perhaps even as late as 1944 – if he had been aloud to pursue his insane foreign policy at all. Fascism on the other hand, is inspired by, and has many followers that believes in different radical-democratic ideas based on corporatism and syndicalism. In practise there where some political constraints on who could be elected into the corporations, but this was not part of the doctrine. A similar development took place in the Soviet-union, where elections into the Soviets became restricted and controlled by the state during the 1920s, thus destroying the democratic potential of the regime.
Other fascist leaders such as Salazar and Franco avoided going to war, and thus survived until their leaders died in 1969 (Salazar) and 1975 (Franco,even though Franco is seen as a fascist leader, he and his falanguist party never created corporatism)
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Phu. A lot of text here – but hopefully you will get a better understanding of fascist state-corporatism. The info I have gathered here is collected from a lot of different sources, but I can remember exactly what I learnt where. If you feel like it, you are offcourse free to explore the fascinating world of corporatism, fascism, keynesianism, national-syndicalism, social democracy and other related topics your self. You can also read this blogg I wrote a time ago:
Click here for link to old blogg
What is war corporatism? 