Corporatism, Labour, and Public Policy Gerhard Lehmbruch (Universität Tübingen) Submitted for Symposium No. 11; Social Policies in Comparative Perspective 9th World Congress of Sociology Uppsala -19 August, 1978 Not for citation without consent of the author The paper which I have been asked to prepare for this symposium reports some preliminary reflections and speculative hypotheses developed in the context of ongoing research. It does not pretend to give an definitive answers to the problems that are raised and should be read as a rather sketchy contribution to the discussion. The short time-span available did not permit more thorough elaboration of the hypotheses. 1. Neo-Corporatism: Approaches and paradigms The concept of (neo-)corporatism is becoming increasingly employed to designate recent trends in some advanced capitalist societies, in particular in Western and Northern Europe. Interestingly it has been adopted by different authors independently of each other and in different countries. This has for consequence a somewhat heterogeneous and occasionally rather vague usage. However, few approaches only have so far gained larger acceptance and apparently are of particular relevance for our problem. I shall briefly discuss the conceptualization of corporatism, first as a "mode of interest intermediation", second, as a mode of policy formation. These two approaches are not mutually exclusive but rather complementary to each other. Schmitter's well-known definition of "corporatism" as contrasted to "pluralism" and "syndicalism", and his distinction of "state" and "societal corporatism" (Schmitter 1974, 1977) emphasize the structural dimensions of the phenomenon, in particular the network of interest associations (limited number, singular, noncompetitive, functionally differentiated), their internal organizational structure (compulsory, hierarchically ordered) and their structural relation to the state apparatus (recognition by the State, representational monopoly). Among its advantages are that it should allow workable operationalizations in cross-national as well as longitudinal perspective 1 and might serve as the basis of a developmental model of interest intermediation. This is not least due to the comprehensive character of this typology in which the concept of "corporatism" covers a broader range of phenomena than in the other approach. 1 A supplementary condition would of course be the establishment of a sufficient data base. Existing operational definitions (in particular: Wilensky 1975) are not very satisfactory because of too crude measures. Indeed, conceptualizing corporatism as a "mode of policy formation" amounts to a more restrictive definition, namely, "participation of large organized social groups in public, especially economic policy-making” (Lehmbruch 1974; cf. also the definition by Ruin 1974,172). This too implies a distinction of corporatism from pluralism: In the pluralist mode of policy-formation, interests are organized so as to exert influence or 'pressure" upon the political decision-makers, and policies may be understood – in the tradition of Bentley's "group approach" – as the result of the vector sum of conflicting interests. Or, to put it into the framework of the Eastonian flow model: Interest associations, by articulating particular interests, are producing "inputs" into the conversion process. In the corporatist mode of policy formation, however, they participate in the "authoritative allocation of values" or in the production of "outputs". For, at the difference to the pluralist mode, organized interest here tend to become integrated into the political steering mechanism. Hence, the analytical distinction implied in the pluralist "pressure politics" or "vector sum" model becomes quite inadequate. True, in the pluralist model too a strong interpenetration of state bureaucracies and organized interests may take place, but then it would mean the "colonization" of the state by the interest groups. Corporatism, however, tends to develop into a strongly integrated system of "societal guidance" (Lehmbruch 1977, 94). An interesting argument, utilizing the terminology of German constitutional-legal theory has been put forward by Ernst Wolfgang Böckenförde (1977, 244 ff.): Some interest groups are limited to participation in the "formation of the political will" (politische Willensbildung), which approximately corresponds to Easton's "demands" and "supports"), while others participate in the "power of political decision-making" (politische Entscheidungsgewalt, i.e., "the authoritative allocation of values"). The latter is given, Böckenförde argues, if interest groups "hold as a right decision functions that form an indispensible element of fulfilling the tasks that are incumbent on the political system (the state) as necessities". Participation in the formation of the political will give them only the chance to influence the holders of decision powers, while the outcomes and success are remaining uncertain. But participation in the decision power as such gives to interest groups the chance to make themselves certain decisions that are an indispensable element for the fulfillment of necessary tasks of the state, with the consequence that these decisions cannot be circumvented and hence are binding for other political decision-making authorities. The most important interest-groups of this latter type, according to Böckenförde, are the holders of the "Tarifautonomie" (autonomous power for making binding agreements in collective bargaining), that is, labour unions and employers' organisations, and the "holders of the liberty to invest" (in particular the "big investors") since their decisions constitute "data that cannot be circumvented" ("unumgehbare Daten") for macro-economic policies of the state authorities. Different from this, even a very influential interest organization such as the German Farmers' Association is confined to influence and pressure politics and hence belongs to the first type. "Participation in the power of political decision-making", as the author puts it, does not necessarily mean their integration, or co-optation, into the political steering mechanism. Rather, he concludes with the policy recommendation that such integration should take place. Böckenförde avoids to label this "corporatism". But his typology has some affinity to our distinction of the corporatist from the pluralist mode of policy formation. Our approach is compatible with, and complementary to, Schmitter's conceptualization in so far as the corporatist "mode of policy formation" tends to presuppose a mode of interest intermediation" that is precisely characterized by the organization of the constituent interests "into a limited number of singular, compulsory, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered, and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories". (The Netherlands, with an ideological segmentation of labour unions and other interest associations, constitute a deviant case.) But interest associations that conform to Schmitter's definition of "corporatism" may not necessarily be integrated in the mechanisms of making and implementing political decisions. For example, the German social historian Heinrich August Winkler has argued that the emergence of singular, compulsory, and noncompetitive interest associations in Imperial Germany, such as the chambers of handicrafts (Handwerkskammern) and of agriculture, "constituted cases of organizational protectionism. Two professional groups that were supposed to be of particular importance for the state (staatspolitisch wertvoll) received a preferential treatment as against other groups in looking after their interests: They received assistance from the state for an articulation of their demands which they were unable to do by their own efforts' (Winkler 1972, 18). Winkler's opposition of such “organizational protectionism” to “pluralism” points to the need to establish more complex typologies when moving from the structural dimension of interest intermediation to the functional dimension of organizational participation in policy formation. This is, however, not the subject of the present paper. As for the confrontation of the structural and the functional approach to corporatism (as we may briefly designate them), it appears that corporatism in the functional sense ("mode of policy formation") is a rather recent historical phenomenon the emergency of which is fostered by the existence of corporatist patterns of "interest intermediation" but should be measured independently.2 The discussion about these two conceptual approaches has so far largely been held on the basis of the "political system" paradigm. But it is doubtful whether this – in particular in versions such as the Eastonian flow model mentioned above – is analytically adequate. We should mention two other paradigms that have recently been employed. On the one hand, in an interorganizational perspective it has been argued that "corporatist formations are deemed appropriate because they match higher levels of organizational interdependence" (Metcalfe 1978). Quite different from this rather abstract formulation is an explanation of corporatism on the basis of the paradigm of the "capitalist state" that has been proposed by several authors (in particular, Panitch 1977, B.Jessop 1978). Aspects of both are relevant for our problem. Finally, the terminological distinctions of "societal" vs. "state corporatism" (Schmitter 1974, 1977) and of "liberal" vs. "authoritarian corporatism" (Lehmbruch 1974,1977) are largely identical in meaning. Schmitter's terminology highlights the differences in the development of the particular pattern. I prefer the term "liberal corporatism" since it may be argued that this type is precisely characterized by the blurring of the distinction between "state" and "society" and the interpenetration of the two spheres. 2 Quite different is J.T. Winkler's definition of "corporatism" as an "economic system in which the state directs and controls - predominantly privately - owned business". This definition is quite similar to, e.g. Lenin's concept of "state capitalism " which, according to its author, is compatible as well with "junker-bourgeois imperialism" as with the "dictatorship of the proletariat"(Lenin, 1921). Corporatism as defined above may be one element of the syndrom described by Winkler ("cooptation of the union movement into corporatist institutions; J.T. Winkler, 1976, 134), but logically this seems not to be necessary. Clearly, Winkler uses the term to designate quite another - though not completely unrelated - phenomenon than Schmitter and this author do. 2. Economic policy and the "incorporation” of labour unions Liberal corporatism as a specific mode of policy formation emerges where conflicts over income distribution threaten to affect the directive capacity of the political system. It has developed as a consequence of post-keynesian economic policy, but has retained its importance even more after that policy has largely failed. One of its most conspicuous aspects is the "incorporation", or cooptation of labour unions into the mechanisms of macro-economic policy-making. To this hypothesis one might object that we have much older examples of an "incorporation" of interest groups, for example, of business interests in the form of “chambers of commerce" (or "commerce and industry") as an instrument of an active policy of economic development in l9th century Germany and Austria. (At the difference of the "protectionist" formation of chambers of handicrafts and agriculture mentioned before it might be argued that the early chambers of commerce served central policy-making functions). And, indeed, it should not be denied that the history of corporatism is older than keynesianism. The particular importance of liberal corporatism, however, stems from the fact that it has come to be employed as an instrument for the regulating of distribution conflicts - in particular the distribution conflict of labour and capital. The latter is not the only distribution conflict that may be handled by corporatist devices. An example for corporatist regulation of "secondary" distribution conflicts is the "Konzertierte Aktion im Gesundheitswesen" (concerted action in the public health sector) established in West Germany in 1977: In order to check the "explosion of costs" in public health the associations of the parties concerned (in particular of doctors and of health insurance schemes) meet to fix a ceiling for global increases of health expenses. This, however, is patterned after the model which in West Germany until recently represented the most important type of liberal corporatism: The "Konzertierte Aktion" for incomes policy (from which the labour unions have withdrawn in 1978, for reasons to discuss below). The emergence of liberal corporatism as an instrument for regulating the class conflict of labour and capital is the object of our inquiry. Corporatism in this sense may be considered as a new stage of social-democratic reformism supplementing the older, étatist reformism. It is true that liberal and conservative governments too have repeatedly sought to employ corporatist devices as means of political integration. But effective "incorporation" of the labour unions in general has only been possible with social democratic governments (or with social democrats participating in coalition governments). This is a fact to which we shall have to come back in the course of our reflections. Keynesian and post-keynesian policies have often displayed a strong centralizing bias. Fiscal policy, in particular, has given the impulse to tendencies towards coordination and centralization of institutional actors. For example, the financial autonomy of local government and of the states within a federation has been considered an obstacle to effective budgetary and fiscal demand management. The co-optation of interest groups is another instance in this centralizing process, but has become all the more important as the classical techniques of keynesian policy appeared to be insufficient in the face of phenomena such as inflation under conditions of underemployment. Incomes policy now became important as a sort of "flank protection" for fiscal and monetary policy. New inflation theories attached increasing importance to the behaviour of suppliers on the commodity and. factor markers, among others unions and employers, and this led to the conclusion that influencing such behaviour could be crucial for economic policy - all the more since collective bargaining appears to constitute a lever more easy to manipulate than the pricing of commodities. In particular the theory of the "struggle-for-income-inflation" (e.g. Zawadski 1965) suggested such a strategy. In practice usually this amounts to a policy of wage restraints in order to avoid a "cost-push" that might be prejudicial to profits and hence to the entrepreneurial propensity to invest which, in turn, is considered as essential for maintaining steady rates of growth and full employment. Wage restraint, however, requires the compliance of the organized interests concerned, in particular of labour unions, and in general it has been difficult to obtain such compliance by an "imperative" incomes policy (wage and price controls) or even an "indicative" policy ( "moral suasion", "guidelines " ) which is unilaterally pursued by the government. Rather, the active cooperation of unions and employer’s representatives appeared to be necessary for obtaining such compliance. This, however, presupposed some sort of participation on their part in the elaboration of policy and hence, their co-optation into the decision-making process. This has taken a variety of forms ("social contract", “Sozialpartnerschaft”, "Konzertierte Aktion" etc.), with lower or higher degrees of institutionalization, with a more active role of the government authorities or on the basis of a largely autonomous cooperation between unions and employers as "social partners”. (For details in a comparative perspective, see Lehmbruch 1977; Ulman/Flanagan 1971; Rall 1975.) The record of cooperative incomes policies is controversial: ':While in some countries (such as Austria) it has been smoothly working for many years (Lang 1978), there are also examples of failure that, eventually, have led to stronger governmental interventions. However, the political appeal of "cooperative” corporatist incomes policy seems to stem not merely from its alleged economic efficiency but to a large degree from the connotations of harmony and 'social peace" it comports and which may serve a symbolic function relieving governments from pressure. Now the emergence and the working of corporatist incomes policies raises the following puzzle: Since the emphasis is on wage restraint labour unions are exposed to strong internal stress which results from the perceived asymmetry of policies. European labour has in general experienced society as “class society", characterized by inequality, and the redistributive impetus of its demands has since long been an important element of its cultural tradition. Labour parties and, still more, unions have continued to adhere to redistributive objectives and to a redistributive rhetoric in spite of all accommodation that has taken place in practice. Now normally a cooperative incomes policy means that labour has to put its redistributive objectives last (see, in particular, Pfromm 1975; also Ulman/Flanagan 1971, 224 ff.) Incomes policies may comport some sort of "horizontal" redistribution among different categories of workers, in particular in the form of a “solidary wage policy". But it is an essential element of most incomes policies that the “vertical" distribution of factor incomes between capital and labour cannot be challenged in favour of the latter (except in the sense of restoring a long-term distribution ratio during certain phases of the business cycle). The resulting puzzle then is how to explain the compliance of labour organizations and their readiness to cooperate. The leftist slogan of "traitors to the working class" has few empirical plausibility, even if it is underpinned by arguments concerning the oligarchic structure of union leadership and the apathy of members. We have to assume rational behaviour on the part of union leaders, and since, in the case of European unions, corruption of individual leaders in general is out of the question, we have to ask for the organizational quid-pro-quo that may make rational their cooperation. Such a quid pro quo may, to begin with, result from the very logic of post-keynesian macroeconomics. Its central notion of the interdependence of macro-economic aggregates leads to a number of interrelated reflections: On the one hand (as the West German "Council of Economic Advisers", the "Sachverständigenrat", has argued) the "struggle for income" is "functionless" for the different actors dispose of levers to restore the original ratio of incomes distribution (for example by inflationary passing wage costs to burden prices). On the other hand, the level of employment depends on the propensity to invest and the latter in turn depends on the expectation of reasonable profits. Hence, wage restraint should simultaneously guarantee monetary stability, full employment, and a long-term stable and fair income share for labour. "Distributional neutrality" is supposed to be one of the conditions of success of this policy. The attempt to translate this logic into political action has been characteristic of the West German version of cooperative incomes policy. The "Konzertierte Aktion", initiated in 1967 by the social democratic minister of economy, Karl Schiller, was conceived as a "discussion round" with an educative function; intended to provide the organized interests with an understanding of macro-economic interdependencies. On the basis of "guidance data" provided by the government the actors should be able to calculate the consequences of their activities and thus be induced to accordingly change their behavior in the sense of conformity with "economic reason". In particular it was expected that the unions would thus be prevailed upon to manifest the wage restraint supposedly necessary to reduce the trade-off that, according to the Phillips theorem, exists between inflation and unemployment. It was made clear that the "Konzertierte Aktion" itself had no decision-making power of its own. The "Tarifautonomie"(autonomous power of collective bargaining) of unions and employers should remain intact, without formal intervention of the state. This differs clearly from the practice of such long established corporatist bodies as the Austrian "Paritary commission for wages and prices" or the Dutch "Foundation of Labour" whose opinions on wage negotiations are either binding or at least carry great weight for the decisions of other authorities. Exchange of ideas in the "Konzertierte Aktion" did not even end up with a formal agreement or concrete recommendations. Rather it was expected that information as such should be translated autonomously into action by the groups concerned Such a policy has of course certain structural conditions. One is a rather high degree of associational centralization, another a strong receptiveness for somewhat sophisticated economic reasoning. Both conditions were largely met within the German labour movement. It is true that the Trade Union Confederation (DGB) itself is rather powerless and has no effective control over the policy of unions. But since not only these are organized industry-wide and quite strongly centralized, but furthermore some of them (especially the Metal Workers Union) exert a strong "wage leadership" role, it was largely sufficient to include the leaders of the most important unions into the "Konzertierte Aktion". Receptiveness to economic reasoning was favoured by the increasing importance of economic expertise within union staffs, due to the employment of trained economists and to the adoption of keynesian thinking. However, in West Germany these conditions proved not strong enough to secure lasting compliance. The "Konzertierte Aktion" was effective only under two further restrictive conditions. Only in a situation of economic crisis (as in the recession of 1967-68) were the union leaders in a position to make their rank and file accept a policy of wage restraint. The wildcat strikes of 1969, caused by the perceived lag of prices behind rising profits, in a situation of economic recovery, and the wildcat strikes of 1973 made it clear that compliance of the membership could not be expected under conditions of boom. Furthermore, the reasoning linking jobs to profits was convincing only so long as it could be made sufficiently evident to the membership. This was not longer the case when, in the crisis of the seventies business increasingly resorted to rationalization by labour-saving investments. It may be asked why, under such conditions, labour unions have for so many years participated in the "Konzertierte Aktion". On the one hand, it certainly limited their latitude of action and subjected them to stronger pressure from public opinion, and it caused occasional unrest within the rank and file On the other hand already in the early 60's, union leadership itself was quite strongly oriented towards consideration of the "gesamtwirtschaftliche" effects (effects on the whole national economy) of its policy. In 1972, a study published by the labour unions research institute argued that the "Konzertierte Aktion" was a failure, that Karl Schiller's belief in the feasability of mobilizing the "collective reason" in form of an elite consensus overarching conflict had been "naive", and that neither employers nor unions were really interested in continuing an organized activity that effectively served only the publicity of the government. According to the author, both groups continued their participation simply because they worried that public opinion might accuse them of being in the way of economic stability and were afraid of leaving the field to the other side (H. Adam 1972, 92 ff.). Finally, in 1977 the German Trade Union Confederation, and the industrial Unions affiliate to it, ceased to participate in the "Konzertierte Aktion". The reason was that the law on codetermination in large business firms, which parliament had passed after laborious compromises, had been attacked by the employers organizations by a plaint of unconstitutionality. The employers intention apparently was not to bring down the law itself (which is rather improbable) but to obtain an opinion by which the Constitutional Court would set narrow limits to an eventual future extension of the law towards a stronger influence of labour representatives on the boards of firms. This, however, is a central long-term objective of the unions. And their walkout seems to indicate that co-determination was the payoff expected as a quid-pro-quo for their cooperation in incomes policy. 3. A neo-corporatist logic of exchange? The failure of the 'Konzertierte Aktion' raises the question whether liberal corporatism, as some authors argue, is inherently unstable, or whether under certain conditions it may acquire stability and durability. For the time being, discussion of this question will be of a somewhat speculative character. We shall have to ask which trends towards a broader and more stable establishment of neo-corporatism may eventually be discerned. It has been suggested that one reason for the temporary failure of corporatist incomes policies in West Germany was the fact that payoffs expected by the unions have not materialized. The error in design probably lay in the isolation of the problem of wage restraint. This observation may be generalized into the following first hypothesis: Liberal corporatism in its dominant form, the core element of which is a cooperative incomes policy, requires from labour the renunciation of traditional! redistributive objectives, and in a long-term perspective this will probably not take place without labour obtaining certain quid-pro-quos or trade-offs outside of wage policy. The interesting question now would be in which policy areas such trade-off might be looked for. Before discussing this in more detail a general comment concerning the structural context is appropriate. It has been observed that liberal corporatism seems to be highly correlated with social-democratic participation in government.3 This is not surprising and can in a quite plausible manner be explained by the fact that with such a constellation labour may expect the greatest chances to obtain such trade-offs. In turn, for just this reason, unions may have an interest to support a social democratic government by cooperating in its economic policy. This apparent correlation, then, would not simply be due to ideological solidarity but to the fact that liberal corporatism rests upon a characteristic logic of exchange. If we proceed from the assumption of rational behaviour of union leaders such a hypothesis is most likely to explain the eventual "incorporation" of labour. If we now go one step further and ask which policy areas may be eligible for such trade-offs it is, first, evident that quite probably these will equally concern the conflict of labour and capital, and, second, that with high probability they will be interdependent with wage policies. This leads to the following (admittedly somewhat speculative) hypothesis: More durable and stable forms of liberal corporatism will probably be characterized by the simultaneous treatment of interdependent problems arising in the context of the conflict of labour and capital. A particularly obvious example is taxing policy the nexus of which to incomes policy is undeniable. Contrary to the doctrine of the "built-in stabilizers" function of progressive taxes, the tax progression may result in an intensification of the "struggle for income" as soon as under inflationary conditions it hits more and more wage-earners. In Austria, which has a cooperative incomes policy since the '50s, it has not at all been uncommon for the minister of finance to discuss tax reforms with the labour unions. On the other hand, taxation of business earnings is likewise relevant for an income po2icy. A significant pattern which recently has appeared in several countries is the extension of incomes policy to include income taxes, social security taxes, prices, farmer's incomes and food subsidies. "Combined packages" or "simultaneous solutions" of this sort have been tried, in particular, in different Scandinavian countries (e.g. Denmark 1963, Finland since 1968, Norway 1976). Yet this sort of broadening of incomes policy seems largely to be of an ad hoc character and thus does not result in an institutional stabilization of corporatism. A higher probability of this taking place is given in labour market policy, since it has been characterized by the development of quite strong institutional-bureaucratic structures. However, there are considerable cross-national differences in the institutional framework, in particular concerning the participation of the organizations of labour market parties. To the degree that labour unions have an active stake in employment policy this may, in their perspective, yield certain trade-offs for wage restraint or for compliance in a normal incomes policy. There may even be instances where an 'active labour market policy' with strong union participation has been conceived as an alternative to incomes policy as in Sweden (Ulman/Flanagan 111 ff). Since labour market policy in turn may be supported among others by regional and/or sectoral investment planning in this area too corporative patterns of organizational participation will eventually become important. 3 I have not yet made a statistical test since this would presuppose a satisfactory operational definition of corporatism more complex than those proposed until now. This problem is currently under investigation. The West German developments discussed above point to another area important in our context, namely, co-determination in industry. This matter is somewhat ambiguous since in the rhetoric of labour unions it is often assimilated to "economic" or "industrial democracy". But one has of course to distinguish the quasi-syndicalist concepts of "industrial democracy" and those of "workers control" from the corporatist concept of "co- determination" which, in its German version, is based on the principle of "parity of capital and labour" with the implication that labour is sharing the responsibilities of private enterprise. There seems to be a striking coincidence of the recent diffusion of co-determination schemes in other European countries with the growing importance of liberal corporatism which deserves further investigation. An aspect of particular importance would be to what degree co-determination on the firm or plant level results in a sort of "firm egoism" of labour representatives, or to what degree it is oriented towards taking into account larger economic considerations - be it by the co-optation of union representatives from outside the firm or by the establishment of regional or national" economic councils".(Both are part of the platform of the West German labour unions.) Co-determination of the latter type would clearly fit into our definition of liberal corporatist policy formation. Finally the possible repercussions of income policies on the distribution of income and wealth might be neutralized by a "policy of formation of wealth"(Vermögensbildungspolitik). The original problem is, of course, that an aggressive union strategy of wage increases cannot change the distribution of wealth in favour of labour because of worker's high propensity to consume. On the other hand many schemes of workers' participation in reinvested profits simply result in reinforcing the financial assets of firms without challenging the control by the original owners and management. (The problem is somewhat similar with pension funds on the firm level as long as labour has no decisive share in their control). The corporatist strategy would be one of "collective capital formation" where workers' shares would be placed in funds under the organizational control of labour. Propositions of this sort have not yet been realized on a larger scale, and in countries such as West Germany until now they have never had an appreciable chance of materializing. However, in Sweden the discussion has led to concrete projects (Meidner plan) the future realization of which cannot be excluded in the case of a reversal of the actual parliamentary majority. Hence it may make sense to include concepts of "collective capital formation" into research on corporatist policies. To sum up I would predict that liberal corporatist co-optation of labour will remain unstable as long as it is largely restricted to an incomes policy the essential element of which is wage restraint. If political decision-makers continue to favour corporatist devices for economic policy this will, because of the perceived asymmetry of incomes policy, result in trends towards reinforcing compensatory corporatist patterns in related policy areas which give labour unions a larger influence in public policy. From this would probably result an institutional stabilization of corporatism the eventual consequences of which remain to be investigated. 4. Problems and alternatives The problem of neo-corporatism has often been discussed under the aspect of constitutional democracy: Does the emergence of corporatist structures of interest intermediation constitute a threat to responsible government based on parliamentary representation by elections? I have argued elsewhere that the trend is rather towards a structural differentiation of the political system in which a corporatist subsystem is specialized on – and restricted to – conflict regulation and consensus formation in certain areas of economic policy (Lehmbruch 1977). Now the prediction of an eventual expansion of corporatist policy-making and its possible institutional stabilization raises the question whether this might not in the long run lead to a sort of "functional primacy "of the corporatist subsystem in relation to the subsystem of parliamentary representation mediated by political parties. For the time being, empirical evidence for the existence of such trends seems to be poor. One might, however, point to certain trends towards corporatist control of public opinion and even social science research that have been recorded from Austria (Matzner 1974, 442 ff.). Another – and related – problem is that of the consequences of corporatist policy formation for the internal power structure and legitimation of interest organizations, in particular of labour unions. While on the one hand it presupposes a centralized organizational structure on the other hand centralizing tendencies seem to be still further reinforced. This, according to the judgment of observers in different countries, is accompanied by the increasing influence of experts (in particular of trained economists) within the organization. Trends like these are quite often related to the theorem of organizational goal displacement current since Robert Michels. Trends in liberal corporatism as sketched out above would then be attributed to the "autonomous associational interest" of labour unions (Goetz Briefs). Indeed it cannot be a priori excluded that advantages which labour may eventually obtain from corporatist policies largely accrue to its top and medium ranking leadership in form of status and influence. The crucial empirical question remains, however, whether tangible advantages accrue to the membership. Critical discussion of these aspects might eventually lead to the problem of alternatives to liberal corporatism. Two opposite strategies seem to be of importance. One would be the eventual transformation of corporatism towards something like syndicalism by an increasing participation of the rank and file in the articulation of demands. This, however, would probably tend to increase the intensity of conflict and thus would run counter to the corporatist objective of coordinating organized interest in a society characterized by antagonistic interests. The other strategy would be the restoration of a competitive market structure by reducing the power of economic actors, in particular by regulating labour unions. To achieve consistency and “symmetry” it would, however, be imperative to include the curtailing of oligopolies and other concentrations of economic power in such a strategy. It is significant that in the last years concrete projects of regulating labour unions – such as the abortive British Industrial Relations Act – have rather been of a hybrid and inconsistent type, combining elements of an "incorporation" of unions with others aiming at reducing their control. Thus it may seem doubtful whether any clear alternatives to corporatism have a serious chance of being realized. References Adam, Hermann (1972): Die Konzertierte Aktion in der Bundesrepublik. Jessop, Robert (1978): Corporatism, fascism and social democracy (mimeo, ECRP workshop on corporatism, Grenoble). 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