----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Barkley, Corporatism was much more than the idea of harmony between classes, although it certainly advocated this harmony. It was concerned about the harmony between all groups in society. Moreover, when at the end of the 19th century it became official Catholic ideology in pope Leo's manifesto Rerum Novarum, it stressed the distribution between wages and profits as much as the income distribution between small and large firms. In the Netherlands the influence of corporatistic ideas was always strong. The eye-catching result of Dutch corporatism is European agricultural policy. This policy was modelled in line was Dutch corporatistic practises. It all started with the idea that the agricultural firm should - for its indispensable place in society - be protected. The first measures were price regulations: indeed Pope Leo's just price (which he took over from Acquino without any idea of the economic consequences.) It does not matter in this respect, that the architect of European agricultural policy, Mansholt, was a Dutch social democrat. At the time - second half of the 20th century - the Catholic corporatistic ideas had more or less merged with the social democratic ideas of planning. When looking for 'types' of corporatism it is not sufficient to look at the Nazi countries, Austria and Sweden only. First it ought to be noticed that facsism in Italy was very different from facsims in Germany. Next. I suspect, that your focussing on Austria and Sweden depends on your outlook that corporatism is about the harmony between capitalists and labourers. By the way, I can't imagine how pope Leo's Rerum Novarum could have had any influence in Sweden. The pope certainly would not have liked the participation of women in the labour process. Dutch corporatism is, in my view, the institutional remnant of that prewar WW2, not those new wars) battle fought between advocates and adversaries of a liberal economy. The best start for the study of Dutch economic history is, of course, M. Wintle, 2000, An Econonomic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800 - 1920, CUP. Evert Schoorl and I wrote something about the peculiar agreement between social democrats and catholics, which resulted in te postwar (again WW2) Dutch economic order. (In M. Psalidopoulos, 2000, The Canon in the History of Economics, Routlege.) Henk Plasmeijer ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]