Corporatism predates Fascism and was co-opted by Mussolini

Evidence

The idea of the “ethical” State is associated with Croce. For the latter, the two moments of the State were the “ethical” and the “political” (or the “moral” and the “useful”); he saw these as being in perpetual dialectical contradiction— a conflict which he represented symbolically as that between Church and State. The term was also adopted by fascism, see e.g. Mussolini, in “The Doctrine of Fascism ”, 1932: “The fascist State has its own consciousness, its own will, and for that reason is called an ‘ethical’ State. In 1929 … I said ‘For fascism the State is not the night-watchman … it is a spiritual and moral fact… it educates the citizens to civil virtue . . etc. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2341 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Corporatism conceived as an autonomous industrial bloc excludes parasitic savers from accumulation.; The ethical State concept was borrowed by fascism from Croce — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2341; Fascism drew on syndicalist currents and positioned itself against both bolshevism and plutocracy.

Related

• The ethical State concept was borrowed by fascism from Croce (similarity 0.90)
• Italian corporatism predated Fascism with Catholic, Socialist, and capitalist backers. (similarity 0.85)
• Italian corporatism arose from economic policing needs, not industrial modernisation. (similarity 0.80)
• Fascism appropriated the Hegelian idea of a national spirit to justify state power (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci analyzed fascism as comparable to Bonapartism and New Deal interventionism (similarity 0.79)
• The Fascist corporate state aimed to neutralize class conflict generated by industrialization (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The ethical State concept was borrowed by fascism from Croce #expands (0.72) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2341