Corporatism?

[La Peur Rouge]

I read a comment by someone on a different website recently that basically said "capitalism doesn't exist anymore and what socialists are attacking is corporatism/mercantilism."

This sounds like bullshit to me, but I need to read up on corporatism. Anyone care to comment on this?

[Zanthorus]

As far as I recall, 'corporatism' was the kind of economic system advocated by the Italian fascist movement. Essentially, it involves collaboration by all classes in the running of the nation and the economy, through the use of the state. So you have representatives of workers interests (Through the trade union bueracracy, which was made into a full-on state organ during the fascist period), employers interests all negotiating, supposedly to make the economy run in the most harmonious way possible.

'Capitalism' definitely still exists, in the sense of the self-valorisation of value, the investing of money into labour-power and means of production to generate more money, the generalisation of commodity production and commodified (Or 'wage') labour, even in a 'corporatist' economy.

[Revolution starts with U]

They can have that argument if we can have "socialism never existed; what they are attacking is state-capitalism (or whatever)."

[La Peur Rouge]

They can have that argument if we can have "socialism never existed; what they are attacking is state-capitalism (or whatever)."

Seriously.

"Hurr durr doesn't matter what you say cause the USSR was communist and so is North Korea. Communism = totalitarianism blah blah blah blah. I create my own definitions of what shit is and is not"

I don't even waste my time responding to arguments like this.

[Amphictyonis]

Capitalism naturally forms concentrated wealth and large capitalists have always used the state to profit. Quite simply what we have today is capitalism. That's all there is to it. Capitalism. The state and the large capitalist have never been divided.

[Adil3tr]

Corporatism is the government acting exclusively in the interests of the corporations as the leaders of the economy. Italian fascism is a good example.

[blake 3:17]

The term is thrown around in a couple of different ways.


I read a comment by someone on a different website recently that basically said "capitalism doesn't exist anymore and what socialists are attacking is corporatism/mercantilism."


Capitalism obviously exists. I don't know the context of the comment you're quoting but there are many on the reformist Left that only oppose capitalism at its very worst and ugliest. At the end of the 90s, with the successes of anti-WTO protests in Seattle, a fair number of moderate leftists called themselves anti-capitalist in protest of its grossest offences.


Essentially, it involves collaboration by all classes in the running of the nation and the economy, through the use of the state. So you have representatives of workers interests (Through the trade union bueracracy, which was made into a full-on state organ during the fascist period), employers interests all negotiating, supposedly to make the economy run in the most harmonious way possible.

There have been Left and Right variations of this. This kind of Corporatism has never really taken hold in English North America. It has been much more common in both Latin America and Europe.

[ShadowMarxist]

As far as I recall, 'corporatism' was the kind of economic system advocated by the Italian fascist movement. Essentially, it involves collaboration by all classes in the running of the nation and the economy, through the use of the state. So you have representatives of workers interests .

I believe that is closer to whats Known as "Social Corporatism"

[NGNM85]

I read a comment by someone on a different website recently that basically said "capitalism doesn't exist anymore and what socialists are attacking is corporatism/mercantilism."

This sounds like bullshit to me, but I need to read up on corporatism. Anyone care to comment on this?

That's largely correct in a sense. It depends on how you define 'capitalism.' If we go to the philosophical foundations, Smith and Hume, etc., they were advocating something fundamentally different, they would be absolutely horrified by what we're calling 'capitalism', today. Real capitalism, the kind advocated by Smith and Hume hasn't really existed, it's essentially an entirely theoretical concept. The closest approximations were still significant deviations, and generally short lived. What we actually have right now, the dominant paradigm in the world at the moment, would be more accurately described as 'corporate mercantilism', or by at least modifying 'capitalism' with the word 'state.' There are some other terms people have suggested, as well. So, I guess it comes down to whether you want to accept the definition that's used in common parlance, or the real definition.

[Zanthorus]

The classification of varying modes of production has nothing to do with 'philosophical foundations', it is about mode of extraction of surplus-value. Smith and Hume advocated the extraction of surplus-value through the market, the generalisation of commodity production and commodified (Or 'wage') labour, the investing of money into labour-power and means of production to create more money, and hence were advocating the current 'dominant paradigm'.

[NGNM85]

The classification of varying modes of production has nothing to do with 'philosophical foundations', it is about mode of extraction of surplus-value. Smith and Hume advocated the extraction of surplus-value through the market, the generalisation of commodity production and commodified (Or 'wage') labour, the investing of money into labour-power and means of production to create more money, and hence were advocating the current 'dominant paradigm'.

That's like saying every domesticated animal with four legs and fur is a dog. It's not entirely off base, but it's deficient.

If Smith were alive today, he'd most likely be classified as an anti-capitalist. He believed in markets, yes, but under the precondition of perfect liberty and equality. He did talk about the potential benefits of division of labor, but he also said it had the potential to render a person 'as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.' That's just the tip of the iceberg, Smith devotes a sizeable paragraph to the capacity for the division of labor to destroy a human beings' mind, their body, and their spirit, in very strident language. His position is far more nuanced than what is commonly presented, which is at best a caricature of what he actually believed. There's his denounciation of joint-stock companies. He urged that essential industrues be absorbed into the state, like banks, if he were alive today that would doubtless include many other industries, like healthcare, telecoms, etc. He argued for a strong social welfare system. Also, he argued for the necessity of government to curb the activities of financial entities when they are driven to acts that detract from the general welfare, following what he called the 'vile maxim of the masters of mankind'; "All for ourselves and nothing for other people..' He was well aware that 'among this latter class our merchants and manufacturers have been by far the principal architects. In the mercantile regulations, which have been taken notice of in this chapter, the interest of our manufacturers has been most peculiarly attended to..' Essentially, what Marx would later call 'class analysis.' Then there's statements like this; 'But the cruellest of our revenue laws, I will venture to affirm, are mild and gentle in comparison of some of those which the clamour of our merchants and manufacturers has extorted from the legislature for the support of their own absurd and oppressive monopolies. Like the laws of Draco, these laws may be said to be all written in blood.’ In short, what he was envisioning was something fundamentally different from what we see right now in the United States, and elsewhere, which we can be fairly sure he would have considered an abomination.

[RadioRaheem84]

He believed in markets, yes, but under the precondition of perfect liberty and equality.:lol: