[orthodoc]

Japan had a similar corporate system for decades. It works well in the areas of job security, benefits, etc. It seems to go with a very rigid social structure, though, one in which the company is essentially the benign overlord that takes care of the serfs. I think North American society in the '50s and '60s was similar - I know many of the big resource companies in Canada were that way. They owned entire towns, the schools, etc., and provided generously for their employees. However, they were also free to do whatever they wanted in terms of destroying the environment. And when they ultimately decided to close shop they left ghost towns and ruined lakes, rivers, and forests.

I don't know that that will ever again be a viable paradigm. I think people are too mobile now, for one thing; the corporations also had carte blanche, worse than what they have today, to wreak environmental destruction. Wealthy Democrats, Liberals, and NDP, of whom there are many, are as much to blame in all of this history as Republicans and Conservatives (and all the rest of the Canadian parties).