Corporatism in America
(this series originally posted on Facebook some months ago)
An excellent article in Regulation magazine (a Cato publication) describes the rise and decline of unions in America and the relationship of union legal power to "corporatism" in America. Corporatism is explained - it is in fact a regulated economy that depends on both corporations and unions having price control power in the market, so that corporations are promised a "fair" price and unions are promised a "fair" wage. It is a kind of soft planning.
The history of corporatism in America is fascinating, the period when it reigned can easily be seen as an experimental step toward socialism (or fascism) which indeed is what corporatism is -- a socialism-lite that lends government power to both firms and workers but stops short of directing output or completely owning the profits and losses.
As I have learned from the book Fool's Gold, many in the administration at the time of the NLRA and NRA were in fact socialists and wanted to take the next step after corporatism, toward a fully planned economy. Whether you believe that this was widespread, whether you would favor it or not, it is interesting when comparing the economic systems to consider how corporatism would indeed have been an appropriate and necessary step toward a fully planned economy.
While corporatism is a regulated economy, with regulated prices in the major industries and regulated wages, a fully planned economy - socialist or fascist - would also involve regulated output and regulated profit - with "excess" profit from one industry offsetting "planned losses" in another.
Under fascism, the firms would still be nominally owned by private individuals but those individuals would have power within the government; under socialism they would be described as "public" and those in charge would be government officials -- the names would change but the structure would be the same. The government would be setting the profit, prices and wages, determining who is to thrive and who to starve and what the economy is to produce.
(to be continued)
An excellent article in Regulation magazine (a Cato publication) describes the rise and decline of unions in America and the relationship of union legal power to "corporatism" in America. Corporatism is explained - it is in fact a regulated economy that depends on both corporations and unions having price control power in the market, so that corporations are promised a "fair" price and unions are promised a "fair" wage. It is a kind of soft planning.
The history of corporatism in America is fascinating, the period when it reigned can easily be seen as an experimental step toward socialism (or fascism) which indeed is what corporatism is -- a socialism-lite that lends government power to both firms and workers but stops short of directing output or completely owning the profits and losses.
As I have learned from the book Fool's Gold, many in the administration at the time of the NLRA and NRA were in fact socialists and wanted to take the next step after corporatism, toward a fully planned economy. Whether you believe that this was widespread, whether you would favor it or not, it is interesting when comparing the economic systems to consider how corporatism would indeed have been an appropriate and necessary step toward a fully planned economy.
While corporatism is a regulated economy, with regulated prices in the major industries and regulated wages, a fully planned economy - socialist or fascist - would also involve regulated output and regulated profit - with "excess" profit from one industry offsetting "planned losses" in another.
Under fascism, the firms would still be nominally owned by private individuals but those individuals would have power within the government; under socialism they would be described as "public" and those in charge would be government officials -- the names would change but the structure would be the same. The government would be setting the profit, prices and wages, determining who is to thrive and who to starve and what the economy is to produce.
(to be continued)
Labels: corporatism, NRA
posted by liberty at
4:25 PM
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