Stefano Rocca Parmenides: Phelps defines the goals of a corporatist system to be: “First, there is the solidarist aim of protecting the “social partners”—communities and regions, business owners, organized labor, and the professions—from disruptive market forces; also the consensualist aim of blocking business initiatives that lack the consent of the “stakeholders”— those with a stake besides the owners, such as employees, customers, and rival companies. Second, elevating community, society, and being over individual engagement and personal growth appeals to antimaterialist and egalitarian strains in Western culture. Third, there is the “scientism” that holds that such a system can be more dynamic than the former system—maybe not more fertile in little ideas, such as might come to petit bourgeois entrepreneurs, but certainly in big ideas. Not having to fear fluid market conditions, an entrenched firm can afford to develop expensive innovations based on current or developable technologies. And with confederations of firms and state mediation available, such firms could arrange to avoid costly duplication of their investments. The state, for its part, could promote technological advances in cooperation with industry by harnessing the society collective knowledge. The state could indicate new economic directions and favor some investments over others through its instrument, the big banks.”