(Confédération Générale du Travail – the main trade union con-
federation) are regularly consulted, whilst grass-roots opinion is held
to be virtually represented by these. Producer and metropolitan
groups, perhaps inevitably, tend to be much more strongly repre-
sented than consumer and provincial interests. These somewhat cosy
arrangements are reinforced by what some writers have called ‘co-
optation’ whereby the favoured interest groups are even involved in
administering the policies evolved, and were expected to sell them to
their members. Some hostile critics have described such a system as
‘fascism with a human face’ (Pahl and Winkler, 1975) and suggested
that all sorts of ‘feather-bedding’ of special interests result.
This description of liberal democracy as a corporatist system is, of
course, a variety of what we earlier described as elite theory. Cor-
poratism has been criticised for leading to cosy behind-the-scenes
decision making, the so-called beer and sandwiches in smoke-filled
rooms of the Harold Wilson era. Its proponents suggest that by
bringing together the most powerful forces within the economy,
long-lasting decisions can be made. Its opponents suggest that too
many interests become alienated because their views are not given
consideration.
Centralisation
In Britain, Mrs Thatcher and the right wing of the Conservative
Party were hostile to the idea of corporatism and denounced the
growth of the QUANGOs which accompanied these practices. Rather
than fascism, they saw these developments as the institutionalisation
of a nanny socialist state. Their view was that too many decisions
were being taken by vested interests (including the trade unions)
behind closed doors at the expense of the citizen – when citizens (in
the their role as consumers) could take these decisions through the
market. Hence the need was seen for a radical reshaping and trim-
ming of the state – requiring strong central political leadership to
enforce budgetary control and attain efficiency through market
forces.
Partly for these reasons, there was much less emphasis within the
Thatcher/Major British Conservative governments on consultation,
compromise and negotiation. Instead the emphasis was on the need
for the government, having had its programme approved at the polls,
DEMOCRACY 187