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Guild socialism is a political movement advocatingworkers' control of industry through the medium of trade-relatedguilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public".[1] It originated in theUnited Kingdom and was at its most influential in the first quarter of the 20th century. It was strongly associated withG. D. H. Cole and influenced by the ideas ofWilliam Morris.
Guild socialism was partly inspired by theguilds ofcraftsmen and other skilled workers which had existed inEngland in the Middle Ages. In 1906,Arthur Penty publishedRestoration of the Gild System in which he opposed factory production and advocated a return to an earlier period of artisanal production organised through guilds.[2]: 102 The following year, the journalThe New Age became an advocate of guild socialism, although in the context of modern industry rather than the medieval setting favoured by Penty.[3]
In 1914,S. G. Hobson, a leading contributor toThe New Age, publishedNational 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 conventionaltrade union 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."[1]
Ernst Wigforss—a leading theorist of theSocial Democratic Party of Sweden—was also inspired by and stood ideologically close to the ideas ofFabian Society and the guild socialism inspired by people likeR. H. Tawney,L.T. Hobhouse andJ. A. Hobson. He made contributions in his early writings aboutindustrial democracy and workers' self-management.
The theory of guild socialism was developed and popularised by G. D. H. Cole who formed theNational Guilds League in 1915 and published several books on guild socialism, includingSelf-Government in Industry (1917) andGuild Socialism Restated (1920). A National Building Guild was established afterWorld War I but collapsed after funding was withdrawn in 1921.[2]: 110
Thescience fiction work ofOlaf 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.[4]
Cole's ideas were also promoted by prominent anti-authoritarian intellectuals[5] such as the British logicianBertrand Russell, first through his 1918 essay Roads to Freedom.[6][7] Other thinkers who incorporated Cole's writings on guild socialism include the economistKarl Polanyi,[8]R. H. Tawney,[9]A. R. Orage, and the American liberal reformerJohn Dewey.[10]
For scholar Charles Masquelier, "[i]t 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".[11]
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