IMG#04

Gierke's theory of association, a conception of a pluralist State that would have limited powers in respect of voluntary self-regulating associations. Neither gave great emphasis to the econ-omy, but Figgis supported the autonomy of both the churches and the unions from the State. Figgis inspired the two major English associationalist writers of this century, G.D.H. Cole and Harold J. Laski. Cole developed between 1917 and 1920 a com-prehensive Guild Socialist system of economic and social govern-ance. Laski brought English pluralist political theory to its most rigorous level in his A Grammar of Politics (1925). Associational-ism then went into a rapid and almost total decline, the reasons for which will be considered when we examine the demise of Guild

Socialism in Chapter 4.

Other ideas paralleled or influenced associationalism, such as French labour and administrative syndicalism, and some of the French and German corporatist ideas. Most corporatist ideas were authoritarian and, if anti-capitalist, favoured a State administra-tive or neo-medievalist guild society solution to the problems of modem society. Hegel had developed the idea of a ‘civil society’ distinct from the State. The Corporation was as one of the main agencies of govemance of economic relations in civil society. He did not see these bodies as free associations but as compulsory regulative agencies. Moreover, he imposed above civil society a State with attributes that no associationalist committed to voluntarism and individual liberty could accept for a second. The corporatist tradition did contain an important truth, that economic organization and the public power must be brought into coordination. Laissez faire ignores this necessity and socialism overcompensates by, in practice, subordinating society to the $tate. Many associationalists and corporatists argued that repre-(S5n}entative democracy was a fundamentally inadeąuate system of ^jjepresentation, that it gave effective expression neither to the .J^ctual wills of individual electors, nor to the social interests. Thus Jj^jhey proposed a system of functional democracy based on the (S*iajor social interests represented through corporatist structures. Is we shall see, functional democratic ideas contain important defects and cannot be a substitute for representative democracy. gnadeąuate as most democratic systems are, few modern citizens •would want to lose the vote. There is, however, an important point these arguments if different forms of representation are not