Class collaboration is a principle ofsocial organization based upon the belief that the division of society into a hierarchy ofsocial classes is a positive and essential aspect ofcivilization.
Modernsocial democracies withsocial market economies tend to implement class collaboration associal corporatism.[1] The development of social corporatism began in Norway and Sweden in the 1930s and was consolidated in the 1960s and 1970s as theNordic model.[2] Social corporatism later expanded to otherWestern European andLatin American countries with the spread of thewelfare state, social market economies, andindustrial unionism, in addition to local movements such asPeronism.
Class collaboration is one of the main pillars of social architecture infascism, particularlyItalian fascism. In the words ofBenito Mussolini, fascism "affirms the irremediable, fruitful, and beneficent inequality of men".[3] Given this premise, fascists conclude that the preservation of social hierarchy is in all of the classes' interests and therefore all classes shouldcollaborate in its defense: the lower and the higher classes should accept their roles and perform their respective duties.
In fascist thought, the principle of class collaboration is combined withultranationalism. The stability and the prosperity of the nation was seen as the ultimate purpose of collaboration between classes.
Some versions of class collaboration are associated with an economic model in which the state, assumed to have a non-class character, would mediate between different social classes (primarily between employers and employees). Among other things, such mediation would entail disallowingstrikes by employees andlockouts by employers; setting upcorporations as the representatives of given industries; and replacing independent labor unions with organizations under state control.[4]
Marxists ideologically oppose class collaboration, advocatingclass struggle.Communists additionally favor the formation of aclassless society.
The main Marxist criticism of class collaboration is that class collaboration assumes the state alone can reconcile class antagonism in society and that the strife that gives rise to socialism can be harmonised. For Marxists,the capitalist state is a tool used by the bourgeois class, meaning that the state will inevitably favor the employers over employees in class disputes.[5]
SomeMarxists use the term "class collaboration" pejoratively, to describe working-class organisations that do not pursueclass struggle. In this sense, the term has connotations ofcollaborationism. In the 1930s, social democracy was labeledsocial fascism by theCommunist International, which maintained that social democracy was a variant offascism because it shared a corporatist economic model and additionally stood in the way of transitioning tosocialism andcommunism.[6]
At the same time, communists do not reject all alliances between classes. Some communists argue that in a country with a large peasant population, the transition to communism can be accomplished by an alliance between two classes, thepeasantry and theproletariat, united against thebourgeois class.[7]Mao Zedong'sNew Democracy concept calls for "the peasantry, the proletariat, the petty bourgeoisie and national and patriotic elements from the bourgeoisie to collectively operate for the building of a socialist society".
