Corporatism is the belief that major interest groups such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labor, military, patronage, or scientific corporations should run society. Corporatism developed during the 1850s in response to the rise of classical liberalism and Marxism, as it advocated cooperation between the classes instead of class conflict, and corporate solidarism would be created by Emile Durkheim as a school of corporatism. Corporatism became one of the main tenets of fascism, and Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in Italy advocated the collective management of the economy by employers, workers, and state officials to reduce the marginalization of singular interests. After World War II, corporatism became a tenet of supporters of social democracy, conservatism, and Christian democracy, opposing liberal capitalism.
Corporatism is broken into many different schools:
- Christian corporatism - The original incarnation of corporatism used by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
- Liberal corporatism - A more capitalistic and individualistic variant of corporatism. Heavily influenced the New Deal by American President Franklin Roosevelt.
- State corporatism - The most authoritarian form of corporatism where the state itself is considered to be a corporate that forms the basis of society.
- Fascist corporatism - A form of state corporatism espoused by fascists, most notably, Benito Mussolini in Fascist Italy.
- Social corporatism - A hybrid of socialism and corporatism. Similar to a social democracy.
Corporatism has a tendency to be mistaken for corporatocracy due to its name, however, the two ideologies are extremely different. Corporatocracy is an economic and political ideology that states that the government should be controlled by corporate companies and corporate interests, or at the very least, corporate companies should be able to influence the government. Corporatocracy is more individualistic as each company fends for itself whilst corporatism is a collectivist ideology where the corporates work together for a common interest.
Corporatism is similar to another ideology known as syndicalism. A difference between the two is that corporatism's corporates are ran by the government while syndicalism's labor unions are ran by the workers themselves. Syndicalism is further left than corporatism.