Business, corporatism and the crisis of the French Third Republic. The example of the silk industry in Lyon, 1928–1935

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe main purpose of this case study of an abortive entente in the Lyon silk industry in 1935 is to show that corporatism, often depicted by historians as a vague intellectual doctrine with little or no appeal to real business, was in reality a key category, linking business, politics and ideology. It is suggested that the problems of the silk industry must be seen in the context of a crisis of the Lyonnais liberal tradition and of the economic and ideological contradictions of French society as a whole. These tensions help in turn to explain the authoritarian potential of corporatism in the 1930s and the attraction of many business people to anti-parliamentary political movements. The example of the silk industry also reveals that corporatism cannot easily be categorised in terms of a traditional/modern dichotomy and that the impetus for the transformation of the French economy originated as much in the ideas of business people themselves as in the actions of the elite groups emphasised by some historians.