What is Corporatism and what are its characteristics?

Corporatism is an economic-political system in which decision-making power rests in the hands of organizations and not of individuals. Therefore, these are in charge of negotiating and signing agreements that will be the future rules that govern the society in question.

Normally, corporatism is usually divided into classes, and is made up of communication or interaction between three sectors:

  • Business associations
  • Trade union associations
  • The government as a negotiator for both parties

Corporatism deals with issues about salaries, labor disputes, coordination in production between workers and the company, as well as contracts and strike provisions that may arise. If there is disagreement with the conditions established by lower strata (such as merchants or workers), they must communicate it to higher strata internally within the corporation so that they can remedy it.

It may be thought that this methodology does not truly represent what the lower strata want to achieve or claim. In fact, the term corporatism is not entirely frowned upon, since many think that the term gives room to seek the benefit of a specific sector (an elitist sector). For this to work, obviously, there must be a vertical body, which implies that corruption and internal fraud in unions increase considerably.

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