Corporativism

CORPORATIVISM. - By corporativism one may understand every theoretical tendency and every legislative and practical implementation aimed at organizing capital and labor in a unified way, for the purpose of a preventive and peaceful composition of their respective interests. Unlike syndicalism, which is centered on a substantial antagonism of interests between the working classes and the employer classes, corporativism intends to overcome such antagonism a priori, through the organization of capital and labor into a unified institution.

The term derives historically from the corporations existing before the French Revolution, which were nevertheless organizations invested with functions of a predominantly economic nature, and in which the actual workers ("companions"), like the apprentices, found themselves in a situation of hierarchical dependence, also for organizational purposes.

The evolution of these corporations took place in two distinct periods: the medieval one, that is, of corporate autonomy, and that of the modern age, that is, of administrative regulation (v. CORPORAZIONE).

The ideas proclaimed by the French Revolution led to considering corporativism as something definitively superseded; but the rise of the social question and the consequent appearance of socialist doctrines belied the liberal ideologies in the field of labor, and the organizational movement of the working classes rapidly gained ground in all industrially advanced countries.

Alongside the socialist doctrines and the trade-union movement inspired by them, a Christian social doctrine gradually took shape, which, while it agreed with the critique of economic liberalism with respect to the working class, diverged substantially instead in its reconstructive part, by recognizing private property and by overcoming the premise of class struggle. Hence the prospect of a Christian corporativism (in part linked to medieval corporativism), which had, especially in the second half of the last century, a significant theoretical elaboration.

This movement began in Germany, where, while Msgr. G.E.F. Ketteler had confined his reform projects within the framework of the labor cooperative, 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 been a matter of a compulsory reorganization by "estates" (Stände), on the political and on the economic plane, of all the categories of production; and the various Stände would then have elected district Chambers, from which would have been designated the members of a national Economic Council, invested with regulatory functions. As a member of the Prussian Landtag and of the Reichstag, Hitze repeatedly sought to implement his own theories: after various attempts, the law of 26 July 1897 was approved, which enhanced the artisan corporations, recognized for them certain privileges especially in matters of apprenticeship, and provided for the creation of compulsory corporations whenever they were requested by the majority of the trade concerned.

In Austria, a corporative reorganization was advocated by Rudolf Meyer, by Alois of Liechtenstein and, above all, by Karl von Vogelsang, who, keeping in mind the social order of the Middle Ages, inspired by the Church, supported a reorganization of the State on the basis of professional "Bodies." Such bodies were to have full autonomy, so that the regulating institutions of economic-social life would have been, not the State, but the professionally organized categories in corporate form. Vogelsang too intended to implement his own scheme in all sectors of production, while recognizing the particular difficulties of its application to large-scale industry, in which it was nevertheless judged especially necessary, as a guarantee of that "deproletarianization of the proletariat," which would have allowed, through access to the corporate ownership of goods, the overcoming of the premises of class struggle. Through the work of the Christian Socials, and in particular of Liechtenstein, the trade corporations, which had been abolished in Austria in 1859 but which in fact had not disappeared, were officially re-established by the law of 15 March 1883, supplemented by the law of 23 Feb. 1897, which also provided for regional corporations for large-scale industry.

While in Germany and in Austria the anti-liberal and corporative tendencies were predominantly widespread among the exponents of the Christian-social movement, in France such tendencies belonged above all to the group headed by the Oeuvre des Cercles catholiques d'ouvriers, whose leading exponents were Albert de Mun and René La Tour du Pin. La Tour du Pin may be considered as the theorist of French Christian corporativism: although linking himself to the formulations of Hitze and of Vogelsang as regards the organization of society into professional bodies, and although devoting indeed particular study to the reconstruction of professional representations in the municipal, provincial and legislative chambers, he differs from the German-speaking Christian Socials, in that he does not dispense with voluntary and differentiated associations of workers and of employers. La Tour du Pin's formula is "free corporation within the organized Body of the State": that is, adherence to the union, and to the grouping of unions corresponding to the corporation, is voluntary, while all those who exercise a determined profession belong by right to the Body of the State, invested with broad powers, of representation and regulation.

In practice, the corporative idea, conceived in the form of a social patronage of the employer with respect to his employees, had its most important realization in the Corporation chrétienne de Val-de-Bois, devised from 1877 onward by Léon Harmel, as an association constituted between the families of the employers and those of the workers, and to which an entire complex of initiatives for the spiritual and material assistance of the workers referred, among which a Fund for the family wage and a Conseil d'usine, representing an effective collaboration of the workers in the disciplinary and professional direction of the firm.

If even in France there still existed, in the second half of the last century, artisan corporations of the medieval type, and new corporations of the same type were instituted in this period, the Waldeck-Rousseau law of 21 March 1884 on the legal personality of professional associations adhered instead to the scheme of workers' or employers' unions, despite the attempts of the Catholic deputies (in particular of de Mun) for the possible recognition also of mixed unions.

Conversely, in Belgium there was, in this same period, a return to organizations of the corporative type with the Guildes des métiers, among which particularly important was that of Louvain, founded in 1878 by the Catholic deputy Helleputte. For Italy one may recall how the motu proprio of 14 May 1852 of the pontiff Pius IX authorized the constitution of corporations; while a return to the corporative system was advocated by Catholic writers of the time, such as the Jesuit Fathers Luigi Taparelli and Matteo Liberatore, and by various Catholic congresses, such as that of Venice (1874), of Bergamo (1877), and of Lucca (1887).

The encyclical Rerum novarum (May 20, 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, it admitted that professional associations could be not only of a mixed character, but also of workers alone. In fact, after the encyclical Rerum novarum the Christian social movement itself came to orient itself, more than toward corporative schemes, toward trade-union schemes.

This, although especially in German-speaking countries the theoretical tendency was still toward a corporative reorganization, as appears from the "Program of German Catholics" drawn up in 1896, which had some practical repercussions, such as the institution of Chambers for agriculture. The Oeucre des Cercles developed its doctrine around the formula "the free union within the corporatively organized profession," but increasingly placed the accent on the free union, as appears from the programs it agreed upon, beginning in 1896, with the youth organizations and with the movement for Christian democracy, which, in France, accompanied the origins of Catholic workers' organizations.

In Italy, in the period preceding the First World War, the name chiefly to be remembered is that of Giuseppe Toniolo (v.), founder of the ethico-Christian economic school and of Christian democracy, who advocated: the reconstitution of the proletariat into an organic class by means of corporations, that is, by means of a permanent representation; and, in general, a corporative ordering of the classes, placed at the basis of the democratic constitution of the State. This Christian social order is set out in detail by the "Program of Catholics in the face of socialism," formulated by the Catholic Union for Social Studies in 1894, which also bears the signature of G. Toniolo. And, particularly through the initiative of Toniolo himself, the Catholic congresses held in this period considered several times the practical implementation of the corporative ordering, at first especially in the form of mixed professional organizations and, later, especially in the form of separate and opposed workers' and employers' organizations: thus the Congresses of Pavia (1894) and of Milan (1897) specified the organization of rural unions as "professional unions representative of class"; the Congress of Rome (1900) took into particular examination Toniolo's report on the theme "Professional unions and class representations"; the Congress of Taranto (1901) turned its attention to professional unions or workers' leagues, and such associations were advocated by the Congress of Bologna (1903) and by that of Modena (1910).

The period immediately preceding the First World War appears characterized, in Italy as in every other country, not only by the progressive abandonment of corporative schemes, but also by the affirmation of Christian trade unions, which, although class organizations, recognize private property and economic initiative, while limiting them from the social point of view, 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 came everywhere to take concrete form in trade-union organizations of notable development, the corporative idea was constitutionally realized, in some countries, in the form of an authoritarian organization of the professional and economic categories.

This orientation took shape first of all in Italy with the coming to power of the Fascist regime, whose trade-union organizations assumed, through the denial of classist premises, the name of corporations, when, until 1925, they operated in competition with the red organizations and with the white ones. Beginning in 1926, Fascist legislation proceeded to build a corporative system, based on the inclusion, among the aims of the State, of aims of an economic character, and therefore on the institutional preeminence of general political and economic interests over the interests of individuals, whether isolated or grouped together.

While the law of Apr. 3, 1926 no. 563 limited itself (art. 3) to providing for central bodies of liaison between employers' and workers' associations, with the power to issue rules for the regulation of labor, the Royal Decree of July 1, 1926

no. 1130 introduced the term "corporation," to designate an organ of the State which brings together the national organizations of employers and of workers relating to a determined branch of production or to one or more categories of enterprises, and has the function of conciliating disputes, of promoting the improvement of production, of establishing employment offices, of regulating apprenticeship. The 6th declaration of the Charter of Labor, approved by the Grand Council of Fascism in 1927, confirmed this corporative scheme, and transferred the normative competence of the corporations from the field of labor to the economic field in general.

In practice, the institution of the individual corporations was preceded by that of the National Council of Corporations (law of March 20, 1930 no. 206), as a representative organ of all the categories of production considered as a unity, and invested both with consultative functions and with normative functions in matters of welfare activities, of the regulation of labor relations and of the regulation of economic relations. The institution of the corporations took place following the law of Feb. 5, 1934 no. 163, which specified their consultative, conciliatory and normative functions; normative functions for the collective regulation of economic relations and the unitary regulation of production, and for the formation of tariffs relating to economic services and performances, or to the prices of consumer goods offered to the public under conditions of privilege.

The corporative order was then given greater weight on constitutional ground, inasmuch as, by virtue of the law of Jan. 19, 1939 no. 129, the effective councillors of the individual corporations, as members of the National Council of Corporations, were by right also members of the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations.

In Spain, especially through the work of Minister Aunos, a decree of Nov. 26, 1926 established a national corporative organization, realized through joint committees, competent only in the field of labor, and subject to rigorous control by the State. The corporative organization, subsequently established by the national syndicalist order (set up by the Franco 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 answerable to the individual enterprises, which, considered as a unity, represent the basic cell of the system.

The Portuguese corporative Constitution, approved by popular referendum of March 19, 1933, and specified by a group of decrees of Sept. 23, 1933 relating to the economic and labor sector, provides for the creation, alongside the employers' and workers' associations, of corporations, that is, of institutions representative of the various sectors of production, which then contribute to forming the Corporative Chamber, coexisting alongside the political one, but invested with functions of a consultative character.

The Austrian Constitution, approved under the Dollfuss government on May 1, 1934, intended to create a federal State on a corporative basis: while laws of 1934 had regulated professional associations in a public-law sense, various measures issued from 1934 to 1936 brought into being corporative institutions (Berufstände), to which, realizing the theories of Vogelsang, a broad autonomy was recognized in the sector of their respective competence.

The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, of 20 May 1931 (AAS, 33 [1931], pp. 177-228), on the fortieth anniversary of Rerum novarum, fixed the Catholic assessment of the various corporative systems established between the two world wars, and laid the foundations for the "restoration of the social order." Such a restoration was to have led 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, however, was not to have resolved itself into a complete substitution of the State for the individual; and in this regard,

(from C. Pedrazzini, La farmacia storica ed artistica italiana, Milan 1935, p. 39)
CORPORATION - Certificate of registration of Dante Alighieri in the C. of the guild of the Speziali - Florence, State Archives.

in fact, the encyclical made reservations about the fascist corporative system, because of its « excessively bureaucratic and political character ». More precisely, the restoration of the social order should have been brought about not only by the action of the State, but also, and above all, by the action of the intermediate institutions between the State and the individual; and, in particular, by the action of the professional associations, for which, in opposition to authoritarian systems, a regime of freedom is hoped for.

While the Spanish and Portuguese corporative systems are still in force, the Austrian system was abolished in 1937 with the annexation of Austria to Germany, and the Italian system was definitively abolished by ordinances of the Allied Military Government (1943-45), while a trade-union system has come into being, at present only on a de facto basis, which disregards any corporative idea.

Luisa Riva Sanseverino