Guild socialism is a political movement advocating

workers' control Workers' control is participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, communists, social democrats, distributists and Christ ...

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 area. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradesmen belonging to a professional association. They sometim ...

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 Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

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 William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He w ...

History and development

Guild socialism was partly inspired by the

s of

craftsmen Craftsman may refer to: A profession *Artisan, a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative *Master craftsman, an artisan who has achieved such a standard that he may establish his own workshop and take o ...

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 medieval period, from the end of the 5th century through to the start of the Early Modern period in 1485. When England emerged from the collapse of the Roman Empire, the econ ...

. In 1906, Arthur Penty published ''Restoration of the Gild 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 ''The New Age'' was a British weekly magazine (1894–1938), inspired by Fabian socialism, and credited as a major influence on literature and the arts during its heyday from 1907 to 1922, when it was edited by Alfred Richard Orage. It publishe ...

'' 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 (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

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 Ernst Johannes Wigforss (24 January 1881–2 January 1977) was a Swedish politician and linguist (dialectologist), mostly known as a prominent member of the Social Democratic Workers' Party and Swedish Minister of Finance. Wigforss became o ...

—a leading theorist of the

Social Democratic Party of Sweden The Swedish Social Democratic Party, formally the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party ( sv, Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti ; S/SAP), usually referred to as The Social Democrats ( sv, link=no, Socialdemokraterna ), is a social-de ...

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

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

and the guild socialism inspired by people like R. H. Tawney, L.T. Hobhouse and

J. A. Hobson John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption. His principal and ea ...

. He made contributions in his early writings about

industrial democracy Industrial democracy is an arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace. While in participative management organizational designs workers are listened to and take part in the decisi ...

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 (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

but collapsed after funding was withdrawn in 1921. The science fiction work of

Olaf Stapledon William Olaf Stapledon (10 May 1886 – 6 September 1950) – known as Olaf Stapledon – was a British philosopher and author of science fiction.Andy Sawyer, " illiamOlaf Stapledon (1886-1950)", in Bould, Mark, et al, eds. ''Fifty Key Figures ...

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 mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, a ...

, first through his 1918 essay Roads to Freedom. Other thinkers who incorporated Cole's writings on guild socialism include the economist

Karl Polanyi Karl Paul Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Károly ; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964),''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2003) vol 9. p. 554 was an Austro-Hungarian economic anthropologist and politician, best known ...

, R. H. Tawney,

A. R. Orage Alfred Richard Orage (22 January 1873 – 6 November 1934) was a British influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, now best known for editing the magazine ''The New Age'' before the First World War. While he was working as a ...

, and the American liberal reformer

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the fi ...

. 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

Socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

Economic theories Labour movement Libertarian socialism Types of socialism Socialism Syndicalism

History and development

See also

Footnotes

External links