CORPORATIVISM. – One may understand by corporatism any theoretical tendency and any legislative and practical realization aimed at organizing capital and labor in a unitary manner, with the goal of a preventive and peaceful composition of their respective interests. Unlike syndicalism, which is based on a substantial antagonism of interests between workers' categories and those of employers, corporatism intends to overcome this antagonism a priori through the organization of capital and labor into a single institution.
The term historically derives from the corporations existing before the French Revolution, which, however, were organizations invested with functions of a predominantly economic nature, and in which the actual workers («comrades»), as well as apprentices, found themselves in a situation of hierarchical dependence, even for organizational purposes.
The evolution of such corporations unfolded in two distinct periods: the medieval one, i.e., of corporate autonomy, and the modern one, i.e., of administrative regulation (v. CORPORATION).
The ideas proclaimed by the French Revolution led to considering corporatism as something definitively surpassed; but the rise of the social question and the consequent emergence of socialist doctrines challenged liberal ideologies in the field of labor, and the organizational movement of the working classes rapidly gained ground in all industrially advanced countries.
Alongside socialist doctrines and the syndicalist movement inspired by them, a Christian social doctrine began to take shape, which, while adhering to the critique of economic liberalism regarding the working class, diverged substantially in its reconstructive aspects by recognizing private property and overcoming the presupposition of class struggle. Hence, the emergence of a Christian corporatism (in part linked to medieval corporatism), which, especially in the second half of the last century, underwent significant theoretical elaboration.
This movement began in Germany, where, while Monsignor G.E.F. Ketteler confined his reform projects within the framework of labor cooperatives, Abbot Franz Hitze outlined a social reconstruction based on intermediate institutions between the individual and the State, such as the family, the municipality, and, above all, the corporation. More precisely, it would have involved a compulsory reorganization by «estates» (Stände), on both the political and economic levels, of all production categories; and the various Stände would then elect district chambers, from which the members of a national economic council, invested with normative functions, would be designated. As a member of the Landtag and the Reichstag, Hitze repeatedly sought to implement his theories: after various attempts, the law of 26 July 1897 was approved, which enhanced artisanal corporations, recognized certain privileges for them—especially in matters of apprenticeship—and provided for the creation of compulsory corporations whenever requested by the majority of the trade concerned.
In Austria, a corporative reorganization was advocated by Rudolf Meyer, by Prince Alois of Liechtenstein, and, above all, by Karl von Vogelsang, who, keeping in mind the medieval social order inspired by the Church, argued for a reorganization of the State based on professional «bodies.» These bodies were to have full autonomy, so that regulatory institutions of economic and social life would not be the State, but the corporately organized professional categories. Vogelsang also intended to apply his scheme to all sectors of production, while recognizing the particular difficulties of its application to large industry, where it was nonetheless deemed especially necessary as a guarantee against the «proletarianization of the proletariat,» which would allow, through access to corporate ownership of goods, the overcoming of the presuppositions of class struggle. Through the efforts of Catholic socialists, and in particular of Prince Liechtenstein, the trade corporations, which had been abolished in Austria in 1859 but had not actually disappeared, were officially reestablished by the law of 15 March 1883, supplemented by the law of 23 February 1897, which also provided for regional corporations for large industry.
While in Germany and Austria corporative and antiliberal tendencies were predominantly widespread among the exponents of the Christian-social movement, in France such tendencies were especially characteristic of the group centered around the Œuvre des Cercles catholiques d'ouvriers, whose leading figures were Albert de Mun and René de La Tour du Pin. La Tour du Pin may be considered the theorist of French Christian corporatism: although he linked his formulations to those of Hitze and Vogelsang regarding the organization of society into professional bodies, and indeed devoted particular study to the reconstitution of professional representation in municipal, provincial, and legislative chambers, he differed from German-speaking Christian socialists in that he did not disregard voluntary and differentiated associations of workers and employers. La Tour du Pin's formula is «free corporation within the organized State Body»: that is, membership in the union and in the grouping of unions corresponding to the corporation is voluntary, while all those who exercise a given profession belong by right to the State Body, invested with broad powers of representation and norm-setting.
In practice, the corporative idea, conceived in the form of a social patronage of the employer toward his employees, found its most important realization in the Corporation chrétienne de Val-de-Bois, conceived from 1877 by Léon Harmel as an association formed between the families of employers and those of workers, and encompassing a whole complex of initiatives for the spiritual and material assistance of workers, including a family wage fund and a factory council representing effective collaboration of workers in the disciplinary and professional management of the enterprise.
Even in France, in the second half of the last century, artisanal corporations of a medieval type still existed, and new ones of the same type were established during this period; however, the Waldeck-Rousseau law of 21 March 1884 on the legal personality of professional associations adhered instead to the model of workers' or employers' unions, despite attempts by Catholic deputies (notably de Mun) to secure recognition for mixed unions as well.
In Belgium, by contrast, there was a return to corporative-type organizations with the Guildes des métiers, among which that of Louvain, founded in 1878 by the Catholic deputy Helleputte, was particularly important. As for Italy, one may recall how the motu proprio of 14 May 1852 by Pope Pius IX authorized the establishment of corporations; while a return to the corporative system was advocated by Catholic writers of the time, such as the Jesuit fathers Luigi Tapparelli and Matteo Liberatore, and by various Catholic congresses, such as those of Venice (1874), Bergamo (1877), and Lucca (1887).
The encyclical *Rerum novarum* (20 May 1891; *Acta S. Sedis*, 23 [1891], pp. 641-70) confirmed the possible beneficial contribution of associations to the solution of the social question, but, taking into account the prevailing orientation of the working classes and their representatives, admitted that professional associations could be not only of a mixed character but also composed solely of workers. Indeed, after the encyclical *Rerum novarum*, the Christian social movement itself began to orient itself more towards trade union schemes than towards corporative ones.
This notwithstanding, especially in German-speaking countries, the theoretical tendency was still towards a corporative reorganization, as evidenced by the “Programme of the German Catholics” drawn up in 1896, which had some practical repercussions, such as the establishment of Chambers for agriculture. The *Oeuvre des Cercles* developed its doctrine around the formula “free trade union within a corporatively organized profession,” but it increasingly emphasized the free trade union, as is evident from the programmes it agreed upon, starting from 1896, with youth organizations and with the Christian democratic movement, which, in France, accompanied the origins of Catholic workers’ organizations.
In Italy, in the period preceding the First World War, the name of Giuseppe Toniolo (v.) must chiefly be remembered; he was the founder of the ethical-Christian economic school and of Christian democracy, and he advocated: the reconstitution of the proletariat into an organic class through corporations, i.e., through a permanent representation; and, in general, a corporative ordering of classes, as the foundation of the democratic constitution of the State. Such a Christian social order is further clarified by the “Programme of Catholics in the Face of Socialism,” formulated by the Catholic Union for Social Studies in 1894, and which also bears the signature of G. Toniolo. And, particularly through the initiative of Toniolo himself, the Catholic congresses held during this period repeatedly considered the practical implementation of the corporative order, first and foremost in the form of mixed professional organizations and, later, especially in the form of distinct and opposing workers’ and employers’ organizations: thus, the Congresses of Pavia (1894) and Milan (1897) defined the organization of rural unions as “professional unions representing class”; the Congress of Rome (1900) gave particular attention to Toniolo’s report on the theme “Professional Unions and Class Representations”; the Congress of Taranto (1901) focused on professional unions or workers’ leagues, and such associations were advocated by the Congress of Bologna (1903) and that of Modena (1910).
The period immediately preceding the First World War is characterized, in Italy as in every other country, not only by the progressive abandonment of corporative schemes but also by the rise of Christian trade unions, which, although class organizations, recognize private property and private economic initiative, while limiting them from a social standpoint, and intend, as far as possible, to achieve their aims through peaceful means.
In the period between the two world wars, while the Christian movement everywhere took concrete form in trade union organizations of considerable development, the corporative idea was constitutionally realized in some countries in the form of an authoritarian organization of professional and economic categories.
This orientation first took shape in Italy with the advent of the Fascist regime, whose trade union organizations, by denying class-based premises, assumed the name of corporations, when, until 1925, they operated in competition with the red and white organizations. From 1926 onwards, Fascist legislation constructed a corporative system, based on the inclusion, among the aims of the State, of economic aims, and therefore on the institutional primacy of general political and economic interests over the interests of individuals, whether isolated or grouped.
While the law of 3 April 1926 no. 563 was limited (art. 3) to providing for central organs of liaison between employers’ and workers’ associations, with the power to issue regulations for the discipline of labour, the Royal Decree of 1 July 1926 no. 1130 introduced the term “corporation,” to denote a State organ which brings together the national organizations of employers and workers in a given branch of production or in one or more categories of enterprises, and has the function of conciliating disputes, promoting improvements in production, establishing employment offices, and regulating apprenticeship. The 6th declaration of the Charter of Labour, approved by the Grand Council of Fascism in 1927, confirmed this corporative scheme and extended the normative competence of the corporations from the field of labour to the field of the economy in general.
In practice, the establishment of the individual corporations was preceded by that of the National Council of Corporations (law of 20 March 1930 no. 206), as a representative body of all the categories of production considered, invested with both advisory and normative functions in matters of welfare activities, the regulation of labour relations, and the regulation of economic relations. The establishment of the corporations took place following the law of 5 February 1934 no. 163, which specified their advisory, conciliatory, and normative functions; normative functions for the collective regulation of economic relations and the unified discipline of production, and for the formation of tariffs relating to economic services or to the prices of consumer goods offered to the public under privileged conditions.
The corporative system was then given constitutional value, inasmuch as, by virtue of the law of 19 January 1939 no. 129, the effective councillors of the individual corporations, as members of the National Council of Corporations, were ex officio also members of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations.
In Spain, especially through the work of the minister Anons, a decree of 26 November 1926 established a national corporative organization, implemented through parity committees, competent only in the field of labour, and subject to strict State control. The corporative organization, subsequently arranged by the National Syndicalist system (established by the Francoist regime, and resulting from the 26 points of the Falange and, above all, from the *Fuero del Trabajo* of 1938), consists in a system of vertical syndicates for each branch of production, which are linked to individual enterprises, which, considered as a whole, represent the basic cell of the system.
The Portuguese corporative Constitution, approved by popular referendum on 19 March 1933, and specified by a group of decrees of 23 September 1933 relating to the economic and labour sectors, provides for the creation, alongside employers’ and workers’ associations, of corporations, i.e., representative institutions of the various sectors of production, which then come together to form the Corporative Chamber, coexisting alongside the political one but invested with advisory functions.
The Austrian Constitution, approved under the Dollfuss government on 19 May 1934, intended to create a federal State on a corporative basis: while laws of 1934 had excluded professional associations in a public-law sense, various measures issued from 1934 to 1936 established corporative institutions (*Berufstände*), to which, in line with the theories of Vogelsang, a broad autonomy was recognized in their respective fields of competence.
The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, issued on 20 May 1931 (AAS, 33 [1931], pp. 177-228), on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum novarum, established the Catholic assessment of the various corporative systems implemented between the two world wars and laid the foundations for the “restoration of the social order.” This restoration was to lead to a limitation of competition and, in general, to a regulated economy—not, however, according to the criteria of economic supremacy, but according to the criteria of justice and charity. This was not, however, to result in the complete substitution of the State for the individual; and in this regard,
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II. FUNCTIONS
A precise understanding of the nature of medieval corporations and of their evolution can only be gained through an examination of the functions they performed.
These functions may be grouped as follows: economic functions, political functions, judicial functions, welfare functions, and religious functions.
The economic functions are the most important and, as such, are those which essentially justify the vitality of the association; moreover, they are the ones from which the ethical-religious nature of the world that the corporations in a certain way represented emerges most clearly. They consist, in fact, in the defense of the particular interests of individual members (defense against outsiders and defense against members themselves, as in the case of competition regulation), in the recruitment of labor, in the regulation of the supply of raw materials, in the fixing of purchase prices for these materials as well as the prices of products and even wages, according to the criterion of the just price—which is one of the cornerstones of medieval economic thought—in the regulation of the processing of materials or, in any case, in the regulation of the practice of the craft (e.g., provisions on the practice of barbers when they acted as physicians and surgeons, on that of apothecaries in the preparation of various medicines, provisions on the technique of cloth production, provisions on the verification and use of weights and measures, etc.), and in maintaining outlets for products.
With regard to political functions, it is necessary to distinguish between corporations that arose and developed in cities where the central power’s predominance was limited and where, consequently, the latter had to share its functions with the corporations, and cities where the central power succeeded in maintaining all its prerogatives, so that corporations, if they had any political functions at all, did so only by concession from the central power itself.
The first category includes the corporations of Milan, Florence, Piacenza, Bologna, Siena, Pisa, Perugia, as well as those of the cities of Flanders and some in Germany. In these cities, the construction of the State’s constitution on the basis of corporations was in fact merely the final stage of a process by which, first through political emancipation and then through the incorporation of the corporative organization into the State’s constitution, the corporation itself participated ever more closely in power, reaching the point— as in Florence—of limiting political rights to its own members alone.
The political “position” of the various arts, however, differed: the major arts held absolute preeminence, sometimes even directing all foreign policy, a fact fundamental to the economic interests of the category, which were closely tied to foreign markets; the middle and minor arts held a secondary position, their entry into State administration (albeit temporary) occurring later, taking advantage of the economic crisis of the major arts (as in Florence, through the middle class after the crisis of the fourteenth decade of the 1300s), or through revolutionary action (as again in Florence, with the Ciompi revolt, through the proletariat).
The second category includes corporative bodies from Venice, Genoa, the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily, France, Spain, and some cities in Germany, whose political position was limited and controlled by the central power.
In the Most Serene Republic, and to some extent also in Genoa, this is explained by the strict union that existed among all political and social forces and their subservience to the interests of large-scale commerce and the administration of a colonial dominion greatly expanded from the 13th century onward.
Hence, the political function of the arts was limited to a mere representation before the State of their economic and religious interests. In southern Italy, the limited political strength of the corporations is explained instead by the restricted economic power of the professional categories they encompassed.
