One of the most common factual errors that is perpetuated within the left end of the political spectrum in the United States of America is the lumping of fascist Italy's "corporate rule" with the idea that the USA, instead of being a democracy, is actually ruled by corporate power. Hopefully, whether you agree or not, you know what is meant by corporate rule in the U.S.A. I want to clarify what was meant by corporate rule in Italy during the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini.

First some historical background. Benito Mussolini's father is described as an anarchist or socialist. Having a leg up in that culture, Benito became the editor of the leading Socialist Party newspaper at an early age. When World War I broke out Benito abandonned the internationalism of his party for Italian nationalism. Like Lenin and the Communists in Russia, he also abandonned the democratic ideals of the anarchists and socialists. He took the nationalists among the Socialists with him; they became the core of the Fascist Party. They attracted many ex-soldiers but also workers, peasants, and owners of small businesses to their cause. The early Fascist program included a tax on capital, land redistribution to peasants, and nationalization of industry. In other words the Fascists began as a socialist party with a nationalist agenda.

After seizing power the Fascists suppressed those who opposed them and set up a totalitarian society with a strong centralized state. Mussolini's Corporate State theory was not about putting Italian corporate businessmen in charge. Rather it had its historical roots in Syndicalism, which is a kind of anarchism or socialism that advocates that workers own and control the industries where they work. Instead of basing representation on geographic areas, syndicalists believed in representation by industry. So all the health care workers would have a delegate in a national assembly, all the steel workers, etc.

Mussolini turned this idea upside down. Instead of workers gaining control of industry and forming a government based on syndicates, a strong central government organized society in corporations that corresponded to industries. The state would dictate to corporations created by the state to control industry and its workers.

An essay written at the time by Royston Pike, Dictators Who Walk the European Stage (in Universal World History, Volume 10, page 3025) sums it up nicely, once you know the background:

"Masters and men have been formed into twenty-two Corporations which are responsible for the direction of the country's economic organization. From these Corporations the M.P.s [Members of Parliament] of the future will be drawn; thus representation will be functional and not geographical as in democratic countries. A man will be represented in the government machine because he is an engineer or a jounalist and not because he lives in Rome or Naples. Thus we have the "Corporate State," Fascism's outstanding contribution to the body of the world's political theory and practice."

 

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