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noticed into the thinking of all sorts of people. The syndicalistbelieved that industry should be controlled. So did Mussolini and sodid most other people. The syndicalist believed that this controlshould take place outside the state. So did Mussolini and so did almostall others. The syndicalist believed that society should be organizedfor this control in craft groups. So did labor, industrialists, thepeople. And so did Mussolini. The syndicalist believed that industryshould be dominated not by consumers or citizens as such but byproducers. So did most others including the Duce. There was onlyone point on which they differed. That was the meaning of the word"producers." The employers considered themselves the producers.The syndicalists believed the workers were the producers. One wayto resolve that question was to call them all producers. After all,outside of the doctrinaires of various groups, the masses among themhad in mind very practical ends. The bosses wanted to curb competition,protect themselves from what they called "overproduction,"and from what they also called the unreasonable aggressionsof labor. The leaders and doctrinaires among the laboring groupshad theories about workers' councils, etc. But what the membershipwanted was higher wages, better working hours, job security, etc.The seemingly wide gap between the employers' and the workers'definition of the word "producers" was not so great. An organizationthat would form all the producers—the employers and employees—into trade groups under state authority in separate groups butbrought together in some sort of central liaison agency or commission,in which the rights of workers to bargain with their employerswould be preserved, while the employers would have the opportunityto make, with the backing of the law and upon a comprehensivescale, regulations for the planning and control of production anddistribution, came close to satisfying the desires of many men inall parties.All this did not correspond completely to the Sorel syndicalist'sblueprint for society, but it drew most of its inspiration from thatidea. So much is this true that the system has come to be franklycalled Italian syndicalism, and fascist historians and apologists likeVillari now refer to Italy freely as the syndicalist state.It would not be true to say that this is precisely what employers53