There has recently been a revival of interest in the notion of ‘corporatism’, with particular reference to its application in the context of liberal democratic political systems. The principal authors of this revival have depicted ‘liberal corporatism’ as involving relations between government and interest groups that are radically different from those characteristic of ‘pluralism’. However, deficiencies in their definition of liberal corporatism and shortcomings in their perception of pluralism point to a different conclusion.

Pluralism and the New Corporatism

Corporatism as an economic system: A review essay

What it is that economics can, does, or should bring to antitrust is a topic that turns up fairly often in the literature.2 The question of what antitrust has brought to industrial economics has received less attention, and it is that question to which I devote myself in this essay. Stigler (1982, p. 6) has noted the income redistribution consequences of antitrust for the economics profession. Such transfers accrue to individual members of the profession, and are not my topic. Closer to what I have in mind is the invaluable role of antitrust as a rich source of raw material for industrial economists (Coase, quoted in Kitch, 1983, p. 193): I think you can often learn more about how the economic system works by reading law books and cases in law books than you can be reading economics books because you do get descriptions of actual business practices which are difficult to explain.

https://www.krannert.purdue.edu/faculty/smartin/vita/remembrance1205a.pdf

Remembrance of Things Past: Antitrust, Ideology, and the Development of Industrial Economics

Organizational form and performance in urban mass transit

ion is a mistaken interpretation of this instrumental function of ideas with the consequence of distorting if not missing the operational possibilities of the "is" by impos­ ing impossible or disconnected and incomplete solutions upon it--that is, there is no path leading out of the "problematic is" into the "proposed solution." All of the pioneer theorists, in greater or lesser degree, approach the subject of public administration as problematic! not one of them, however, has a reliable theory of the problematic. From Wilson to White, the subject matter is described in a "straightforward empirical manner," then analytically derived explanations are imposed on the described problems as proposed solutions; but when these "solutions" are examined, they turn out to be disconnected from the con­ text to which they apply* Wilson calls for an independent and scientific public administration, but he does not explain how this is to be achieved with policy being executed in an environment of powerful special interest groupsi Goodnow pro­ poses to resolve the problem of the political control over the ends of policy by reforming political parties and rais­ ing the level of informed public awareness, but each of these would seem to depend on the other and Goodnow is silent on just how either might be brought about out of the circum­ stances of political and private self-interest! Willoughby's clarion call for the institution of scientific principles to the practice of administration leaves unanswered why, if so obvious, are they not in place and functioning! not unlike Wilson and Goodnow, White also poses the problem of the public interest versus narrow special interests, but although he suggests conditions favorable to "administrative states­ manship," it is not difficult to enumerate conditions un­ favorable to that prospect? Barnard is alarmed over threaten­ ing discontent with established organizations, but the use of questionable means to perpetuate those organizations is surely the crux of a restless dissatisfaction with their nature and the absence of flexible organizational alterna­ tives? and Waldo bemoans the inherited delusion of a science of administration (and then gives birth to the delusion that a science of public administration is impossible) or begs away administrative problems as after all only traditional political problems for which he denies determinate criteria for resolution. Both White and Waldo give hopeful attention to trends toward more administration, more planning, more professionalization, more specialization, etc., but neither can capitalize upon these tendencies beyond issues of threatened democracy and the general interest, or a crisis in understanding the administrative phenomenon in our midst. There are several "presumptions" in the typical levels paradigm found in our data field. The first is the presumption of autonomy. Autonomy is at the same time one of the most innocuous and one of the most pernicious meanings held in theory. The former because, in and of itself, nothing much, if anything, can be made of it? the latter because of the easy fastening, once accepted, of other not so innocuous meanings upon it. It is not easy to pin down pre­ cisely what autonomy means--first because there is nothing in experience comporting to it; second because it is diffi­ cult to hold meanings still in symbol shuffling without experiential reference. The meaning that seems most to come across is independence* that is, in a state of autonomy there is a presumption of disparity between the category in ques­ tion and another or other categories. In a word, an "A” is presumed separate from a "B"* "A” is an entity sui generis. For our purposes it doesn't matter how "B" is specified-although in a general theory of taxonomy, the specification of "B" makes a very big difference--but what does matter is that there is no "A" in "B" and no "B" in "A," There is a sort of magic emptiness between the border of one and the other* "A*s" border gives it, or should give it, inviolate integrity. Within the level of discourse of its formulation, "A" is an autonomy. But, as "A" is a "something," that something is— much better than "has"--a passive essence, an inactive intentionality that serves as its identity and when active as a basis for interaction with other appropriate categories--for example, "B." In the presumptions of autonomy and disparity there is implied a presumption of initial non-relationalitv. The ready acceptance of "no relationship" between "A" and "B" is astonishing. Certainly, even on purely formal grounds it collapses. If one posits an autonomous "A," what goes un­ noticed is that a contrasting "B" is necessarily implied,

Robin Marris

Papers

Is the Corporate Economy a Corporate State