Hierarchy is the essence of Fascism. In the Fascist State the individual docs not exist alone but in groups in the economic and other aspects of national life. Each group of individuals formed, according to the functions which they perform in the nation, an organisation called a Corporation. Thus the nation is a hierarchical organism of three parts, the individuals at the bottom, the corporations in the middle and the State at the top and as Mussolini said, “beyond the State nothing”. The individuals and the corporations are relative and subordinate to the State from which they derive their rights, powers and being. Corporations were of all kinds— economic, professional, etc. Their officers were appointed from above, by the State, not elected from below by their members.
They consisted of both workers and employers in an industry, or of workers alone. Each corporation supervised the working of its industry, determined wages, hours of work, holidays and conditions of work. The corporation was really a closed association. Its membership was not open to all and was regulated by the State, to which it was subordinate in all its functions. It had two essential features. Firstly, it consisted only of those who were engaged in a given industry or profession and included both employers and employees. Secondly, it did not take over and manage production, within its branch, to the exclusion of its capitalist owners, but simply ‘regulated’ it “under the aegis of the State” and as “an organ of the State.” Thus Mussolini ‘fascistized” capitalism by controlling and “regulating” it. He did not abolish it, but harnessed it by means of the Corporative.
But Corporative also had a political side. Every corporation, together with other functional bodies, acted as an electoral college from which members were appointed to serve on the Fascist legislature, which was called the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations.
Criticism of Corporative
Italian corporative was hailed, by its admirers and advocates, as a new economic system. It was claimed that it was superior to the doctrines of laissez faire and Socialism, because it had reconciled the individual and the State by reconciling them both to the corporations. They harmonised the interests of the workers and their employers, while the State controlled and regulated industry through them. This provided a new conception of the functions of the State. The admirers of Corporative claimed that it provided discipline and responsibility in the economic life, and unity and representation in the political life.
It was further claimed that even if the Fascist State would vanish, the principle of corporative would continue to exist and even that it did not need the single-party dictatorial State to exist. Mussolini, however, never said that it could exist without the single-party rule and totalitarian State. As regards the harmony and reconciliation of the workers and employees’ interests, it is sufficient to say that Fascist Corporative became really a tool for preserving the monopolistic position of capitalism and big landlordism, which were favoured by the Fascist State. While Fascist Government showered favours on big industrialists and landlords, it reduced the wages of the workers and treated them harshly by taxing them heavily. The real wages of the workers were 1(K# less in 1932 than in 1922, when Fascism came into power. Such was the tyrannical and iniquitous rule of the Fascist Corporate State which made the people to revolt against Mussolini’s Government and finally overthrew it in 1944.
We shall consider other weaknesses, follies, and defects of Fascism afterwards, at the end of our discussion of Nazism. Here it is sufficient to say that Fascism was not based on justice or on a humane ideology.