ABSTRACT
Ronald Newton, a historian at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C., opens his chapter by suggesting that a revival of corporatism occurred in Chile following the overthrow in 1973 of the Marxist regime of Salvadore Allende Gossens by General Augusto Pinochet. Newton describes corporatism in terms of the “limited pluralism” of “functional groups” with “cross-cutting solidarities” that break down class distinctions. These groups are given a monopoly by the state to aggregate and articulate their political demands. In the case of Chile, he argues that the Pinochet regime was merely the first overt manifestation of a “‘natural corporatism’ that has been evolving obscurely behind the epiphenomena of movimientos and insurrections, electoral campaigns and golpes, since the depression of the 1930s and, more markedly, since the late 1940s.” In particular, Newton links the idea of natural corporatism and the phenomenon of populism, which emerged in Latin America during the 1930s as a political response to the generalized societal crisis precipitated by the worldwide depression. He proposes that “the two are not only roughly coeval, but that in natural corporatism are found the typical structures and processes of populism.” Finally, Newton considers natural corporatism to form an integral part of the “new authoritarianism” that characterized the rise of military rule in Latin America after 1964.
