Re: P.S. (#52418)
by Lisa Casanova on February 4, 2005 at 6:04 PM

In a course I took about Latin American democracies, the teacher used the term "corporatism" to refer to a historical stage in Latin America when many countries sought to promote economic development and push industrialization via very heavy government involvement in industry and partial socialization of the economy, and applied the term to this type of system in general. I used the term to explain to someone the distinction between capitalism as I believe in it and the system we have in the U.S. I said that I would consider the system we have here to be corporatism, meaning a kind of capitalism where companies compete in markets but are in bed with the government, and don't hesitate to use government to achieve their ends when it suits them. I don't know if using that term might help define the debate more precisely.