Theories and practices of neocorporatism

Abstract

"The modern territoriall state and the capitalist market economy superseded a political-economic order that consisted of a plethora of corporate communities endowed with traditional rights and obligations, such as churches, estates, cities, and guilds. Organized collectivities of all sorts, more or less closely related to the economic division of labour, regulated cooperation and competition among their members and negotiated their relations with each other. While themselves changing under the impact of modernization, they often resisted the rise of territorial bureaucratic rule and the spread of market relations, sometimes well into the twentieth century. But ultimately they proved unable to prevent the victory of the state form of political organization of the self-regulating market as the dominant site of economic exchange. Modern liberalism, both political and economic, in turn aimed at abolishing all forms of intermediary organization that intervene between the individual and the state or the marktet. In the end, however, it failed to eliminate collectivism and had to accomodate itself both political faction and economic cooperation." (excerpt)