Guild socialism is an ideology and a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related

guild A guild ( ) is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association. They so ...

s "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated with G. D. H. Cole and influenced by the ideas of William Morris.

History

Guild socialism was partly inspired by the

s of craftsmen and other skilled workers which had existed in

England in the Middle Ages England in the Middle Ages concerns the history of England during the Middle Ages, medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early modern Britain, early modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the co ...

. In 1906, Arthur Penty published ''Restoration of the Guild System'' in which he opposed factory production and advocated a return to an earlier period of artisanal production organised through guilds. The following year, the journal '' The New Age'' became an advocate of guild socialism, although in the context of modern industry rather than the medieval setting favoured by Penty. In 1914, S. G. Hobson, a leading contributor to ''The New Age'', published ''National Guilds: An Inquiry into the Wage System and the Way Out''. In this work, guilds were presented as an alternative to state control of industry or conventional

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

activity. Guilds, unlike the existing trade unions, would not confine their demands to matters of wages and conditions but would seek to obtain control of industry for the workers whom they represented. Ultimately, industrial guilds would serve as the organs through which industry would be organised in a future socialist society. The guild socialists "stood for state ownership of industry, combined with ‘workers’ control’ through delegation of authority to national guilds organized internally on democratic lines. About the state itself they differed, some believing it would remain more or less in its existing form and others that it would be transformed into a federal body representing the workers’ guilds, consumers’ organizations, local government bodies, and other social structures." Ernst Wigforss—a leading theorist of the

Social Democratic Party of Sweden The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( , S or SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( ), is a Social democracy, social democratic List of political parties in Sweden, political p ...

—was also inspired by and stood ideologically close to the ideas of

Fabian Society The Fabian Society () is a History of the socialist movement in the United Kingdom, British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in ...

and the guild socialism inspired by people like R. H. Tawney, L.T. Hobhouse and J. A. Hobson. He made contributions in his early writings about industrial democracy and workers' self-management. The theory of guild socialism was developed and popularised by G. D. H. Cole who formed the National Guilds League in 1915 and published several books on guild socialism, including ''Self-Government in Industry'' (1917) and ''Guild Socialism Restated'' (1920). A National Building Guild was established after

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

but collapsed after funding was withdrawn in 1921. The

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

work of Olaf Stapledon suggested that a more "individualistic" form of guild socialism would be a natural outcome for a united humanity hundreds of years in the future. Cole's ideas were also promoted by prominent anti-authoritarian intellectuals such as the British logician

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

, first through his 1918 essay Roads to Freedom. Other thinkers who incorporated Cole's writings on guild socialism include the economist Karl Polanyi, R. H. Tawney, A. R. Orage, and the American liberal reformer

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

. For scholar Charles Masquelier, " is by meeting such a twofold requirement that the libertarian socialism of G.D.H. Cole could be said to offer timely and sustainable avenues for the institutionalization of the liberal value of autonomy...By setting out to 'destroy this predominance of economic factors' (Cole 1980, 180) through the re-organization of key spheres of life into forms of associative action and coordination capable of giving the 'fullest development of functional organisation'...Cole effectively sought to turn political representation into a system actually capable of giving direct recognition to the multiplicity of interests making up highly complex and differentiated societies".Charles Masquelier. ''Critical theory and libertarian socialism: Realizing the political potential of critical social theory.'' New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2014. p. 190

Footnotes

External links

* {{Authority control Guilds Economic theories Labour movement Libertarian socialism Types of socialism Socialism Syndicalism

History

See also

Footnotes

External links