ABSTRACT
Two very different views of guilds and corporations emerged in nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Europe. The one, deriving from the Enlightenment, classical Political Economy, and to some extent Rousseau, saw them as combinations of pettifogging sectional self-interest, subversive of liberty and the public good. The other, deriving from German Romanticism and Hegel, saw them as legitimate and necessary associations of producers and merchants, to promote their common interests, secure justice for the producer and — Hegel's contribution — develop his sense of moral responsibility. This second view was the philosophical core and origin of modern corporatism.
