A sort of Semi-Corporatism..

[TheKingOfMercy]

Wikipedia Article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Asian_corporatism)

Now, combine a body of internally elected heads of corporate 'sectors' of the economy with a publically elected body, such as the British House of Commons, and you have the basis for a fairly sensible form of government - "The People" are represented by elected types, and since 'Big Business' in it's modern sense would come under a level of state control, capitalist excess and inequality could be at least curtailed, if not totally wiped away.

(The level of state control of course being determined by the direction of the House - a certain sort of party may try to control the corporate sectors more, another may not).

Thus "The People" would have actual control over their country, in social and economic respects, as they could easily vote in a lot that wanted to control the corporate sector tightly.

Thoughts ? I'm working on the idea as an evolution of Feudalism into something more modern and sensible, and I know you lot like to speak your minds on everything, so this should be interesting.

[VonClausewitz]

Sounds like a fluffy fascism to me.

[Idola Mentis]

Huh. We've got those assemblies already, to some degree. They're called the employer's organization and the labour union. Their leaderships are elected by their assemblies, and their negotiations are mediated by the government. They haven't been given power - they've taken it by attaching themselves to their respective political parties and infiltrating the parliamentary system.

Government mediation fails, and the entire infrastructure of the scandinavian peninsula could grind to a halt due to strikes. What keeps this from being outright fascism is the democracy practiced in the central organizations, their member unions and the local organizations, and the parties' openess about their involvement in the unions. If the central unions tried to become what's described in the wikipedia article, the parts would probably just dissolve and re-form on both sides. But still, if the unions could get into power this way, fascist corporocrats could porbably repeat the stunt, if the unions grow weak enough.

But I think that eventually, you'd have to use force to implement such a system, because organizations which are not built from the ground up will be out of touch with those it speaks for. Even if the upper hierarchy manages to run things competently, the system itself is open to exploitation once some Wolfowitsian idiot gets into the machinery. In general, the organization patterns of the corporate world today is feudal in every way which matters, except the resource they're exploiting - they are no longer confined to land ownership as a source of indentured labour. Trying to transfer this inefficient, abusive and exploitative system to politics is a recipe for revolution. In a way, I hope someone is stupid enough to try it.

[Demogorgon]

They did that in Portugal under Salazar. Portugal ended up a backwards isolated state unti they had a revolution and kicked the fascists out.

Seriously what you are describing is the exact system of the Estado Novo. Given the fact that even by fascist standards it wasn't exactly a towering success I am surprised to see anyone promote it.