ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature of economic crises and performance by focusing on corporatism as an alternative societal mode of organizing designed to control the unpredictable forces of capitalism. The authors point out that corporatism represented a radical departure from the system of liberal constitutionalism founded on the separation of powers and checks and balances to guarantee limited government. Instead, it called for unbounded power in pursuit of the “will of the people.” Corporatists proposed centralized direction and planning, giving the state great control over the contours of economic life. While the pure corporatist systems in fascist Italy or authoritarian Spain and Portugal failed in the twentieth century, Sola and Zoega argue that corporatist elements, such as centralization of information and control, persist in modern-day economies across the globe, with long-term detrimental effects.
