ABSTRACT
Corporatism was one European response to the ethical and organizational problems of laissez-faire industrialization. It was a distinctive programme for political economy. Whether consciously or not, it followed a similar prescriptive pattern to that laid down by Hegel for the corporation itself; but it gave the state less authority over corporations than Hegel had apparently envisaged. In turn, the movement contributed to a new theoretical formulation of the social function of occupational groups, in Durkheim. Whereas socialists often ascribed moral worth to working-class groups, corporatists wanted trade unions to merge with employers' associations, so as to form an organization based not on status or class but on the profession or field of production. They favoured economic regulation by the corporations themselves, with assistance from government only when necessary; in general, they were as much opposed to state control as to laissez-faire. Some, however, envisaged more extensive co-operation, and even symbiosis, between corporations and the state.
