PATRONAGE. — The concept of patronage is the typical expression of a Catholic social stance at the end of the 19th century, reflecting a static view of wealth and a paternalistic understanding of the entrepreneur’s function and of social relations.
In the concept of patronage, property and the entrepreneur’s role take on something of a divine investiture: the entrepreneur is the father, conservator and distributor of wealth, *minister Dei in bonum*; the company community is the workers’ family. The normative canons of labor relations are sought within the concept of family.
I. HISTORICAL FUNCTION OF PATRONAGE
When social legislation and trade unionism had not yet regulated labor relations, and in a climate of absolute liberalism (v.), when law consisted only of the individual conscience of the entrepreneur (v.), Catholic practice and spirituality gave rise to the ideal of a kind-hearted Christian employer who, by reason of faith, enlightened sentiments of justice and charity, would accept all the responsibilities that accompany his social authority, making himself an instrument of divine Providence for the ordering and governance of society. In this ideal, the employer protects, guides, and assists employees with affectionate moral and material support, and concerns himself with their natural and supernatural life. Just as in the biologically understood family, so too in the family constituted by the productive unit, the employer employs all natural and supernatural means to help and educate those entrusted to him. The enterprise is an apostolic field, like the family.II. RELATIONS BETWEEN EMPLOYER AND WORKER IN THE PATERNALISTIC CONCEPTION
A typical document of this sociological position is the *Catechism of the Employer* Harmel (v.). “Between the employer and the worker there exist relations analogous to those between father and children.” “The society between employer and worker is called the workers’ family.” “The employer is the head of the workers’ family.” “The workers’ family derives from a material fact... from a contract... from a principle of natural law... from the duty incumbent upon the employer to exercise the authority granted him by the contract of obligations...” “The workers’ family has the purpose of protecting the natural and supernatural rights of the natural family; of ensuring respect for the foundations of civil society; of safeguarding the material and spiritual interests of its members” (cf. L. Harmel, *Catechism of the Employer*, Siena 1895, §§ 3, 17, 22). This concept of the workers’ family and the resulting view of the social question as a “question of the heart” well express the state of labor relations prior to the rise of modern trade unionism and the legal regulation of such relations.III. TOWARD NEW FORMS OF WORKER PROTECTION
As trade union associations gradually developed a structure capable of regulating labor relations on a legal rather than an emotional plane, both the concept of patronage and that of the workers’ family were surpassed. At the same time, scholarship clarified the concept of the entrepreneur as the technical coordinator of the various elements of production, and of his function, which is necessarily founded on personal initiative and responsibility rather than on factors of tradition and environment. The progressive rise of the working class within the complex economy of modern social structures, the clarification and definition of workers’ rights as persons, the growing intervention of the State in the economy, and the shift from a regime of free competition to one of mixed economy have rendered this concept entirely alien to the modern spirit.Instead, the need for entrepreneurial action—both personal and collective—to improve structures and relations alongside legislative institutions has taken hold, especially in the Christian world after the war. This is evidenced by the contemporary emergence of Catholic employers’ associations in many European countries and the New World, recently gathered into an international Christian employers’ organization (Union Internationale des Associations Patronales Catholiques: UNIAPAC). The existence of such associations, which operate at the heart of the social fabric of the productive order, demonstrates that no legislative structure is sufficient to guarantee social order unless it is accompanied by the action of individual conscience.
The codifier of paternalism, Léon Harmel—who is, in theoretical terms, the codifier of industrial paternalism—was in practice an avant-garde figure who surpassed his doctrinal positions. Honest historical inquiry must revisit the commonplaces that still distort the profile and value of this man, who remains a pioneer even for our own time, despite the limitations of his social doctrine. His concept of social justice, of entrepreneurial authority, and his pedagogy toward the working world are strikingly alive and would astonish the boldest theorists of the enterprise and the moralists of entrepreneurial function with their modernity.