(d) Guild Socialism

In the middle of the last century, when the idea of the emancipation of Labour through productive co-operation was at its zenith, trade unions were practically unknown on the Continent. Even in England they were immature, weak, and divided, although already a force to be reckoned with.

Then the idea arose that productive co-operative societies might be organized more successfully by associating them with trade unionism. In 1882 I published an article on Trade Union Co-operation, in which I drew attention to the inadequacy of productive co-operation, and went on to say:

“This drawback may be overcome through making the associations the property of the trade unions, so that their profits would go to the whole of the organized workers. Of course, the trade union would not grant the workers in their employ any better conditions than their fellows enjoyed under private enterprise. The interests of cooperative workers would therefore be identical with those of other workers. If the business grew, more workers would be employed, and there would be an increase in the number of workers independent of capital. Every extension of the business would be a step in the direction of the emancipation of Labour, instead of, as to-day, a step in the direction of creating new capitalists.

“The proposal of trade union co-operative production is not new. In England in 1842 we find the members of ‘The Journeyman Steam Engine and Machine Makers Friendly Society,’ at their delegate meeting, proposing to spend the money of their society in the purchase of factories. In 1845 the proposal was repeated and seriously considered. In 1847 negotiations were recommenced, but immediately after the delegate meeting a period of such depression set in that all the funds had to be reserved for current expenditure.

“The events of 1848, which gave such an impetus to the Co-operative Movement in France, also produced an effect in England.

“The ‘National Association of United Trades’ proposed in their organ, The Labour League, that a sum of £50,000 should be raised as an ‘Employment Fund,’ and devoted to the establishment of undertakings which would admit members and subscribers who had lost their employment owing to conflicts with the employers.

“It was ‘The Amalgamated Society of Engineers’ which displayed the greatest vigour in this matter. In the first month after the amalgamation, members of the executive committee conferred with members of ‘The Society for the Promotion of Labour Co-operation’ regarding the best investment for their considerable funds. The consequence was a great agitation among the engineers in favour of the co-operative principle.”

In the year 1852 serious steps were taken to put the co-operative idea into practice. The purchase of a foundry had been decided upon the previous year. When a great lock-out was declared in 1852, it was desired to complete the purchase, in order to provide for unemployed members. But the lock-out ended with a defeat of the workers, and absorbed all the funds of the trade union, in spite of generous support from other unions. For the time being all attempts to establish or acquire workshops were paralysed. When trade unionism revived, the idea of productive co-operation had lost its fascination for the working classes.

And the economic prosperity which now set in brought such success to trade union activity that no further attention was paid to the idea of transforming the prevailing mode of production.

This brilliant state of trade union affairs ceased at the end of the seventies of the last century. In the article from which I have already quoted I stated:

“Now this happy period is over for England. Overproduction has become general, and makes itself felt even in the motherland of the capitalist mode of production. The preponderance of English industry disappears more and more, and with it the harmony between Capital and Labour. The trade unions are threatened with bankruptcy, and the working classes recognize more and more the necessity of drastic social reforms. It is no wonder that people are now reverting to the old proposal to establish co-operative production.”

Mr. George Howell, in his book The Conflicts of Capital and Labour, advocated this idea. On page 478 he states:

“Until they utilize some portion of their wealth in the manufacture of articles belonging to their own craft, they can only be viewed as temporary expedients for the relief of pressing necessities. As at present constituted and managed, trade unions live from year to year on their capital, instead of imitating the commercial classes, and growing rich out of profits.”

The idea was also championed by other English social reformers of repute, from whom the article above quoted provoked criticism. I pointed out that the resources of trade unionism were too limited to be pitted against the accumulations of capital; that the trade unions’ funds ought always to be in a liquid form, available for their wage movements, and that the trade union undertakings could not offer any remedy for unemployment, as they, too, would be subject to market conditions. Upon them would devolve the contradictory task of employing few workers in good times, and many workers in bad times.

The trade union productive associations could only become of importance if the State intervened, and placed the necessary resources at the disposal of the trade unions.

The English trade unionists would not listen to this criticism at that time. They saw in the State nothing but a bureaucracy with which they desired to have as little to do as possible, and it is only within the last two decades that this attitude has changed. The trade unions have received great accessions of strength, and have also come to the conclusion that purely trade union methods must be reinforced by political methods, and accompanied by the fullest use of democratic institutions for Labour ends. The trade unions have organized in the Labour Party, and the idea of capturing the State power, in order to shape it into an instrument for the economic emancipation of Labour, is making rapid progress in England.

Under these circumstances the idea of trade union productive co-operation has again arisen, but this time in a more rational socialist form.

The trade unions are not now to establish productive co-operative associations out of their fighting funds, but with State resources, and each separate establishment is to subserve the great common object of a new mode of production. Each trade union is eventually to carry on the whole branch of industry which employs its workers, and all trade unions together are to form a great social machinery of production. The means of production are to pass into the hands of the State, but production itself is to pass into the hands of the trade unions.

Such is the basic idea of Guild Socialism, to which we have several times referred. It originated in the country where trade unionism has secured a greater hold over the lives of the workers than elsewhere. The idea of Guild Socialism arose in England during the years which immediately preceded the war. It has produced a comprehensive literature, arid some attempts have been made to put the principle into practice. Building guilds have been formed in England during recent years, which have made contracts with various municipalities for the construction of a large number of houses. Building guilds upon this model have also been formed in Germany and Austria.

On September 16th the “Association of Social Building Guilds” was founded in Germany, with the support of the following trade unions: the associations of German building operatives, factory-workers, painters and lacquerers, wood-workers, metal-workers, technical employees, machinists, carpenters, stoneworkers, stonemasons, tilers, asphalters, glaziers, and saddlers. An industrial association would, of course, be able to organize the “social building guild” more efficiently than this collection of craft unions. In addition to the above mentioned trade unions, the State of Saxony and a number of German towns and co-operative settlements have invested capital in the social building guilds.

At the beginning of 1922 the building guilds were employing about 20,000 men, and the end of the business year had shown a turnover of 350 millions of marks. The contracts were secured under conditions of free competition. In all these contracts the tenders of the building guilds were about 40 millions (paper marks) lower than those of private enterprise.

Thus a beginning has been made. How rapidly this type of organization will spread depends in the first place upon its appreciation of the need for good workmanship and not less upon the contracts it will receive from Socialist Governments and municipalities, and eventually from Labour organizations, such as co-operative societies and the like. At the outset the building guilds will not be able to depend upon other contracts.

Yet it is not too much to believe that this type of organization has a great future, and will play a notable part in the organization of socialist production.

But Guild Socialism goes too far when it postulates the guild organization as the sole form of socialist’ production. Its primitive conception of the State and inadequate economics may be overlooked as mere academic questions, although they might also involve practical drawbacks. But to force the whole of the economic undertakings of the socialist society into the narrow groove which Guild Socialism proposes would be most detrimental. Its fundamental idea is excellent, but it should not be carried too far.

It is no accident that hitherto the guild idea has only been applied to the building industry. So far as I am aware, there are few indications regarding its application to other branches of industry.

Now the building industry has this in common with the trades concerned with productive co-operation in 1848: it is still in the handicraft stage. The machine does not yet play any part.

The name of Guild Socialism carries us back to the Middle Ages, and reminds us of “masonic lodges.”

Whereas in the other handicrafts of the Middle Ages each master laboured for himself in his workshop with one or two, or with no, journeymen, the case was different with the “free masons,” who had been organized since the twelfth century in brotherhoods, that is, in associations which resembled trade unions. When a building was to be constructed, and it was then usually an ecclesiastical building, the work was undertaken by a brotherhood upon the instructions of an ecclesiastical organization, or of a town, or of a feudal lord, and the brotherhood concentrated its activities in a masonic lodge erected close to the building. As churches were then built very slowly, often occupying a hundred years, the contract with the masonic lodge was a permanent one. The organization survived its members. Within it the artist was not yet separated from the simple workman. All the members shared in the rich experiences and the high degree of knowledge which were gradually accumulated in the organization, and were jealously guarded by them as a secret science. Consequently new members were only admitted after many precautionary measures and tests.

The absolutism which arose after the Reformation suppressed all independent organizations, and also made an end of the freedom of the journeymen’s associations. The organizations of free masons which had secrets from the authorities were bound to be detested. They could only maintain themselves as secret associations.

At the same time the material foundation of the masonic lodges, the construction of the Gothic arches, disappeared. In the new building art the workpeople were separated from the master builders and the artists, whose knowledge and qualifications were now learned at high schools, which, although public, were not accessible to the simple workers, who lacked the necessary means and preparation. Thus the brotherhoods with their secret science became superfluous for the building industry.

Whether the philanthropic secret societies of freemasons, which have arisen since the beginning of the eighteenth century, merely regard the decaying brotherhoods of the freemasons as a prototype, or whether they derive directly from them, does not here concern us.

In spite of the changes it has passed through, the building industry has remained a branch of industry of a peculiar kind, which alike to-day as in the Middle Ages, favours a peculiar type of organization, so that the masonie lodges of twentieth-century Guild Socialism arise from similar conditions to those which originated the masonic lodges of the brotherhoods of masons and stonemasons of the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.

In addition to the fact that machinery plays no more part in the building industry than it did formerly, fixed capital is also of very slight account. It comprises nothing more than equipment and ladders. The land that is to be built upon belongs to the person who gives the contract. There is nothing to prevent him supplying the building material or paying for it himself; in that case the guild would merely perform the labour.

We are not suggesting that the guild system could only be applied to the building industry. It will doubtless prove the most appropriate type of socialistic organization for a whole series of other branches of industry.

In the building industry, however, it will exercise a revolutionary effect. Let us not forget that one of the most immediate and important cares of a Labour regime must be the improvement of housing conditions, for which it would earn the gratitude and support of three-quarters of the town and country population. The municipalities will be the appointed instruments of this great social reform, and the social building guilds will be their rigorous organs, which on their part will find their best support among the socialist municipalities.