We are repeatedly told that work must be more flexible, more competitive, more “modern”. Yet never have so many workers been so isolated, exhausted and dispossessed of their jobs. This malaise is not inevitable: it is the result of an old political choice and a word that has become taboo. A word that the powers that be no longer want to hear, but which could well hold the key to the future of work.
We are told that work is going badly.
That we need to «adapt».
That we need to be more flexible, more mobile, more agile.
But the real question is carefully avoided:
why has work become so unstable, so meaningless, so undignified for so many people?
Because we have methodically destroyed everything that protected workers: the organised profession.
And the word that crystallises this destruction, the one that it has become forbidden to utter without a sneer, is corporatism.
A word demonised to avoid debate
As soon as you say «corporation», the response is Pavlovian:
archaism, closure, privilege, inertia.
But let's look at reality, without ideology.
Workers have never been :
- also isolated,
- also put out to tender,
- also dependent on intermediaries,
- also crushed by red tape,
- also dispossessed of their know-how.
Jobs have been replaced by “functions”,
transmission through “processes”,
the honour of a job well done by indicators.
And we call that progress.
What was really abolished in 1791
When guilds were abolished at the end of the XVIIIᵉ century, a great story was told:
entrepreneurial freedom, emancipation, modernity.
But what has disappeared is not a straitjacket.
This is a social architecture of work.
Corporations :
- trained their own apprentices,
- regulated access to the profession,
- guaranteed quality,
- protected workers against unfair competition,
- organised the transmission over several generations.
They weren't perfect.
But they were doing something essential that nobody does any more:
they put craft above capital.
The great modern lie
We are repeatedly told that the free market protects the consumer.
That's not true.
Above all, it protects :
- platforms,
- funds,
- structures without roots or responsibilities.
Result:
- levelling down,
- low-cost multi-services,
- interchangeable workers,
- sacrificed quality,
- old ones thrown out as soon as they “cost too much”.
Capital loves isolated workers.
He hates organised communities.
It's no coincidence that the word «corporatism» frightens those in power.
Work is not a commodity
This is the crux of the problem.
We have commodified work just as we have commodified :
- water,
- accommodation,
- health,
- education.
But work is about people:
- to its dignity,
- his need for recognition,
- to its fulfilment.
A system that denies this always ends up producing :
- burn-out,
- resentment,
- social anger,
- of widespread mediocrity.
Nor unbridled capitalism,
or collectivist utopias
do not address this reality.
Corporatism is neither right- nor left-wing
That's precisely why it's so disturbing.
Corporatism is based on three simple - and now explosive - ideas:
- The common good takes precedence over immediate profitability.
- The business takes precedence over the investor.
- Transmission takes precedence over short-term optimisation.
It's not about going back to yesterday.
These are reorganise work around sovereign professional communities :
- who form,
- that regulate,
- that protect,
- who sanction if necessary,
- that support their members throughout their lives.
Why the system will fight it to the bitter end
Because a worker in a corporation :
- is less manipulable,
- is more autonomous,
- is less dependent on subsidies,
- is more resistant to impact,
- transmits rather than endures.
In other words:
it is partially beyond the control of capital.
That's why we hear phrases like :
«We have to guard against corporatism.»
Translation :
we must guard against any collective organisation that genuinely protects workers.
Open the debate now
Corporatism is not nostalgia.
This is a a question of the future.
In a world of skills shortages,
crises of meaning,
the divide between those who produce and those who decide,
restating the question of sovereign professional organisations is not a luxury. It is a matter of urgency.
We can carry on tinkering with a system that's running out of steam.
Or we can start thinking about something else.
No slogans.
Without caricatures.
Fearless.
⮕ The debate on corporatism needs to be reopened.
⮕ And those who make a living from their trade have every interest in seizing it.
(To be continued: an in-depth article to get to the heart of the matter and move beyond fantasies).
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