Mr Cole has also written the following GUILD books :- THE WORLD OF LABOUR SOCIALISM LABOUR IN WAR-TIME SELF-GOVERNMENT IN I:i1DUSTRY RE-STATED (Published by G. Bell and Sons) A:i1 INTRODUCTION TO TRADE UNIO:-1ISM THE Pt,YMEC'lT OF WAGES TRADE U:i110NISM OK THE RAILWAYS
(wilh R. PAGE ARNOT) BY (Published by the Labour Research D"partment) G. D. H.COLE LABOUR IN THE COyL\IONWEALTH (Published by the Swarthmore Press) SOCIAL THEORY CHAOS AND ORDER IC'I INDUSTRY (Published by Methuen and Co.) THE MEANI:i1G OF INDUSTRIAL FREE- DO~I (with W. MELLOR) (Published by the Daily Herald)
LONDON LEONARD PARSONS PORTUGAL STREET ! l PREFACE
THIS book does not claim to be an authoritative statement of Guild Socialism in the sense that it would be accepted by all, or by a majority of, Guild Socialists. There is, I am glad to
First pv.llZished. October. H120. say, no such thing as a strict Guild orthodoxy; and for the most part it can only claim to be an expression of personal opinion. I think, however, that where the mutters discussed in it have been the subject-matter of actual Conference decisions of the National Guilds League, the views here taken will be found to be substantiallv in azreemcnt with those ex- p~essed by the PREFACE with the brief section dealing with "transi- tion," and many important problems are en- tirely omitted. Readers are referred for fuller treatment of many of the points discussed to the Guild literature mcntioned in the biblio- graphy. I ought to mention that this study could not have taken quite its present shape but for CONTENTS the discussions of a study-circle of Guildsmen, ~'lIl'['TER of which I was a member, where many of the PAGE questions here dealt with were the subject of I TIlE DEMAND Fon FREEDOM 9 long contention. I take this opportunity of II THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY - 27 thanking the members of the circle for giving 111 A GUILD IN BEING 42 me the chance of commemorising their best TV TIlE GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTIlY - ideas. I have also, of course, borrowed largely 68 from other Guild writers. V THE CONSUMER - 78 VI THE CIVIC SEHVICES - se G. D. H. COLE. September, 1920. VII TIlE STUUCTURE OF TIlE COMMUNE 117 VIII THE WORKING OF THE COMMU'-'E - 189 IX GUILD SOCIALISM IN AGlUCULTURE 161 X EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION ]74- XI THE POLICY OF TRANSITION IS!! XII THE INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK 208 A NOTE ON HOOKS 217 I.-.DEX 219 GUILD SOCIALISM i:l " CHAPTER I TilE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM FOR any just appreciation of the social forces at work in the world to-day, there is no fact more essential to grasp than the broadening and deepening demand of the organised workers for the " control of industry." This demand is made, not in one country or in one form alone, but in nearly every country in which the industrial system is strongly es- tablished, and in as many forms as there are different national temperaments and tradi- tions. Nor is the demand new; for it has appeared, at least occasionally, throughout the history of the Labour Movement, in the " Owenite" Trade Unionism of the thirties in Great Britain, among anarchists and com- munists on the Continent of Europe, and among the early revolutionaries and reformers of the United States. But its character at the present time differs from any that it has pos- .1IIl•••• IIIII•• __ IlI!"'~iIlIIllfIrm,MlII F.a.a.ts5R1liilllll••"""'"""'NIll\iIll~ •••_"'__ .' 10 GUILD SOCIALISM THE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 11 scssed before, not only bccause it is more human association and men's life in Society, IIniversa~a!1d has struck far deeper roots, but arises essentially out of the actual historical because It IS now based firmly on the positive sil.uation in which we are placed at the present achievements of working-class organisation, lime. The Guild Socialist believes what he and IS no longer purely Utopian, but con- believes not so much as the result of a process structive and practical. of abstr~ct reasoning, as because, if his funda- This I~ookon Guild Socialism is an attempt mental assumptions are granted, the Guild to c?,plam the real character of this demand, Socialist solution of the social problem seems partrcylarly as it appears amongst the English- 1.0 him to spring simply and naturally O?t of speaking peoples, and at the same time to Ihe form in which that problem presents Itself present thc central ideas of Guild Socialism to-day. He claims, not to be imagining a as above all an attempt to give theoretical and I ltopia in the clouds, l;mt to. be givifolgform practical expression to the aspirations on which and direction to certain quite definite ten- the demand is based. It is written in the belief dencies which are now at work in Society, and that, until we devise and create forms of social 10 be anticipating the most natural develop- organisation within which these aspirations can ments of alreadv existing institutions and find reasonable satisfaction, there is neither social forces. H~ does not mind being called hope of any "reconstruction" which will a " visionary" ; for he is quite convinced that make our industrial system efficient nor pros- his visions are eminently practical. pect of health in the body social as a whole. The best way then, of understanding the Althou¥h, therefore, the way of approach and Cuild Socialist' ~~ttitude is to see, first, what the main subJect-matter of this book are in- arc the fundamental assumptions about So- dustrial, its impiications and conclusions will ciety which the Guildsman makes; secondly, be found to extend over a considerably wider how he visualises the situation with which the field than that of industry, and indeed to in- industrialised communities of Europe, America volve a theory of democratic representative and Australasia are at present confronted; and government as a whole and constructive pro- thirdly, what are the forces and institutions posals governing ~he general lines of political in whose development he believes that the as well as mdustnal reconstruction. solution of the problem principally lies. A The Guild Socialist theory while like all correct appreciation of these po~~ts will cl~ar other social theories, it mak~~ certai~ funda- the way for a constructive eXpOSItIOnof GUIld mental assumptions concerning the objects of Socialist proposals. : ' •••• R111_fl(11"!'1'l:.nl1lt111lll!~I •••IIlI••II.I __ ••!III••••••__ IIII'_ 12 GUILD SOCIALISM THE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 13 Guildsmen aSSUInethat the essential social whinh is self-governing in this complete sense, values are human values, and that Society is over the whole length and breadth of its ac- to be regarded as a complex of associations t.ivities, can hope to call out what is best in held together by the wills of their members it.s members, or to give them that maximum whose well-being is its purpose. They assum~ opportunity for personal and social self- further that it is not enough that the forms expression which is requisite to real freedom. of government should have the passive or But such arguments as this, by which the as- " implied" consent of the governed but that sumptions stated above may be sustained and the Society will be in health only if it is in reinforced, really depend for their appeal upon the. ful~ sen.se democratic and self-governing, the same considerations, and are, in the last which implies not only that all the citizens resort, different ways of stating the same should have ~ "right" to influence its policy fundamental position. The essence of the If they so.desire, but that the greatest possible Guild Socialist attitude lies in the belief that opportumty should be afforded for every citi- Society ought to be so organised as to afford zen actually to exercise this right. In other the greatest possible opportunity for individual words, the Guild Socialist conception of de- and collective self-expression to all its mem- mocra~y, which it assumes to be good, involves bers, and that this involves and implies the an active and not merely a passive citizenship extension of positive self-government through on the part of the members. Moreover and all its parts. this is p.erhaps the .most vital and significant Noone can reasonably maintain that Society assumption of all, It regards this democratic is organised on such a principle to-day. \Ve principle as applying, not onlv or mainlv to do. indeed. possess in theory a very large some special spliere of social a~tion -k~;;;~~~ Ill~asure or' d~mocracy; but there are -at least " politics," but to any and every form of social three sufficient reasons which make this the- action, and, in especial, to industrial and oretical democracy largely inoperative in prac- economic fully as much as to political affairs. tice. In the first place, even the theory of . In calIi~g. these .t~e fundamental assump- democracy to-day is still largely of the " con- tions of GUIld Socialism, I do not mean to sciousness of consent" type. It assigns to the imply that they are altogether bevond the ordinary citizen little more than a privilege- province of argument. They can i'-ndeed be which is in practice mainly illusory-of choos- sustained by arguments of obvious force; for ing his rulers, and does not call upon him, or It seems clear enough that only a community assign to him the opportunity, himself to rule. 14 GUILD SOCIALISM TilE DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 15 Present-day practice has, indeed, pushed the I11IIiIcd, and the vast mass of social activities I, theory of representative government to the I', «ither not regulated, or regulated by other ! ' ~ength of substituting almost completely, even IIwans, such as the Mediaeval Gilds it is per- III theory, the representative for the repre- II:IPSpossible for a body of men to choose one sented. This is the essential meaning of the I,) represent them in relation to all the pur- doctrine of the " sovereignty of Parliament." I"1St'Swith which a representative political Secondly, such democracy as is recognised is I'ndy has to deal. 1 But, as the purposes conceived in a narrowly" political" sense, as «uvered by political government expand, and applying to a quite peculiar sphere known as ruore and more of social life is brought under politics, and not in a broader and more com- political regulation, the representation which prehensive sense, as applying to all the acts Illay once, within its limitations, have been which men do in association or conjunction. real, turns into misrepresentation, and the The result is that theoretical "dcmocrats" pe-rson elected for an indefinitely large number totally ignore the effects of undemocratic or- (,I' disparate purposes ceases to have any real ganisation and convention in non-political representative relation to those who elect him. spheres of social action, not only upon the lives It appears to the Guild Socialists, as to all which men lead in those spheres, but also in ITal Socialists, obviously futile to expect true perverting and annihilating in practice the d:lllocracy ~o exist. i~ any Society which recog- theoretical democracy of modern politics. IIISCSvast inequalities of wealth, status and They ignore the fact that vast inequalities of power among its members. Most obvious of wealth and status, resulting in vast inequalities a II is !t that, if, in the sphere of industry, one man IS a master and the other a wage-slave of education, power and control of environ- • • 1 "1. "1'" ..• ' ment, are necessarily fatal to any real de- one enjoys ricnes ann gives commands and the mocrucy , whether in politics or in any other ol.her has only an insecure subsistence and sphere. Thirdly, the theory of representative obeys orders, no amount. of purely electoral government is distorted not only by the sub- ruachinery on a basis of " one man one vote" stitution of the representative for the repre- will make the two really equa.l sociallv or sented, but also as a consequence of the politically. For the economic power of the extended activity of political government rich master, or of the richer financier who is falsifying the operation of the representative ,I Thus, government in Great Britain for some time after 1689 was a method. As long as the purposes of political fuirly adequate representation of the aristocracy. whom alone it set out government are comparatively few and t I) represent. 16 GUILD SOCIALISM TIll,: DEMAND ron FREEDOM 17 above even the master, will ring round the wage-slave's electoral rights at every point. A Ill!/ clnss organisation, first and foremost in .its Press which can only be conducted with the J' r:rde Union form, but also in the Co-operative support of rich capitalists and advertisers, an vlovcment and in other less important aspects. expensive machinery of elections, a regime in Tlti~ working-class organisation already ,re~lre- the school which differs for rich and poor and "Ills a very great social power;, bu~ It IS a affords a training for power in the one case I" .wcr unrecognised in the constitution. , It and for subjection in the other, a regime in rrr:t\' be said that it is no more extra-constitu- industry which carries on the divergent lessons I ill;]nl than the even greater power of tl,le huge of the schools-these and a hundred other ,':rpilalist trusts and eOIllbine~ or which the influences combine to make the real political ltderution of British Industries h:1S a:<;sun~ed power of one rich man infinitely greater than I he leadership; but the extra-constltl:tJOnahty that of one who is poor. It is a natural and •,I' capitalist organisations hardly arises as It legitimate conclusion that, if we want de- practical question because tl~ey represent t~~ mocracy, that is, if we want every man's voice ',:II11C class as now holds social and CCOn?I,llll to count for as much as it is intrinsically worth, .uit.horitv in the community and political irrespective of any extraneous consideration, authority in the State, The workers, on the we must abolish class distinctions by doing 01 her hand, as the dispossessed class both away with the huge inequalities of wealth and "(-onomicallv and politically , have to employ economic power on which they really depend, their indust~ial organisation as almost t~e so!e We are faced by the fact that, owing to the means at their disposal for ma~ing their will preponderant influence of economic factors, felt, whatever the question at issue may ~e. \ l..' hp'\7 ~H.nll~-r~ ~ iIo.,-" +l.Jt.l\.J Y (l"-'''--1l;lll''-' a. 0{treater sense of• their In... the present machinery of Society expresses the point of view of the social class which still dllstrial strength, they seek to turn It to ~10re continues to control its economic life. Rut at .uubitious uses, and attempt to employ It as the same time it is dear that the power of .rn instrument or eommun~l gove/;nn~ent, this class is more and more challenged by its This is essentially the meamng of DIrect rival-the working class-acting upon it J\(·tion," , , through the organisations which are becoming The form of economic organisation which more and more fully rcpresentative of all its ., Direct Action " challenges, regarded from groups and sections. The principal social the upper end, is called "C aptitaI'ism. "It '. e- ""ll,ded from the lower end the same system phenomenon of our times is the rise of work- .,' " It' is properly called" Wage-Slavery. IS so 2 T III': DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 19 18 GUILD SOCIALISM I ,I" Ii II'-p()wer as he CHn,and the whole of his called because it imposes, on the mass of those ,1,11." l,l]Jonwhat he produces is supposed to who work under it, a quasi-servile status, and I" III.uidated by.the payment of a wage. The because it does this by means of the wasrc II III,Jev:,lue of his product, over and above his sys~em. The instituti(;n of wages is one by II ;I~(,S; is absorbed by others in the forms of which the employer or company is enabled to "'111, interest and profits. buy labour, in the quantities 'in which it. is 'I'hi~ is, C?fc(~urse, a very inadequate sum- required as the raw material of profit at a 1I1:11'.\';l)U~ It ~Vlllsuffice for our present pur- . ' mar kct price not essentinlly differing from 111)',("wl:lCh lS only that of showing the the market price for ordinary eOlllllloditles. I1l'l':whesIII the system which are already being ~Jabour may be bought cheap or dear, accord- 111:ldc,by the, onslaughts of the growingly mg to market conditions, or, if there is no I"I,~(']'ful w~)rkmg-class organisations. Th~se profit to be made out of it, it need not be ~"'lIc\:e th~ll' results by rescuing the worker bought at all. When the workman's labour Imlll Is?l:lbon, and substituting for individual is bought, he receives a wage: when it is not. ,'ollipetltlVe sale by each worker of his labour- bought, he receives no wages. In the latter I"I.w~r rudimentary forms of collective bar- circumstances, the correct ~apjtalist procedure l~:III1IIl~,through which the Trade Unions used to be either to leave him to starve or to prcsc,rI.be, for all their members, minimum force him into the workhouse under the de- 1'llIlChtH.msunder which the sale of labour- terrent conditions of the" Ncw Poor Law" : power lS to take place. These conditions, as but, this proving neither humane nor eeonom~ Ihe power of ~he Unions grows, increase in ical, the small p-rovision which the better paid number and stringency, and come to represent workers succeeded in making: for themselves more and, more actual interference by the through their Trade Unions has in rec(;ut years workers With the way in which the industry been supplemented by State and employers' I~ fun. conLributions in certain trades, and the work- ~'he Tr~de !Jnion, however, in all the regu- man h~s further been subjected Lo compulsory lations which It lays down, still always remains ded~l('tlOns from his wages to provide against a body external to the actual conduct of in- pen ods of unemployment. These doles, how- dllstry. It. cannot give actual orders as to the ever, do not affect the fundamental fad that, way 1Il which !actories m:e to be run: it can, under the theory of Capitalism, the labourer !);'o,adly speakmg, <;mly impose prohibitions. has no rights in industrv. lIe sells to the 11m leads necessarily to the result that its capitalist, for what he can get, us much of his 20 GUILD SOCIALISM TIrE DEMAND FOR }<'REEDOM 21 ac~ior,t is to a great extent negative and re- strictive, and thus operates in the same way I"'l':tuse the psychological attitudes of the ",,,nomic classes concerned in industry are ~s an externally imposed State law regulating ~ndustry, and p~ssesses the same disadvantages. uurk-rgoing , partly no doubt as a result of the ,11:tnging balance of powers, a fundamental ~he ~urther this external system of prohibi- tions ISpushed, the greater difficulties it creates :t11 nation. The capitalist system, or wage- for. the existing' system. The employer com- . vsl.cm, as we have roughly outlined it above, plains, often with some justice, that he can no \\:IS workable only as long as the various classes longer run his factory in his own wav : but the :I<'('cpted willingly, or could be compelled to Union on its side can only protect it~;llembers ;Il'('cpt, their respective positions under it. In by hampering him, and has no positive power III(' early days of the factory system, and es- to run the fac-tory in his stead. Smooth work- plTiaJly in the period of "Owenite" Trade L'nionism and of the Chartist Movement, ing is sometimes e~tablished in practice by a method of mutual give and take; but the whole 111('rcwas indeed a widespread revolt of the sy~tem is e~sentially one of unstable equili- workers against a status and intolerable con- I d it ions wh-ich were then largely new; but the I brium, and It seems clear, at anv rate to the ~uild Socialists, that there are only two pos- power and organisation at their command were s]bl~ alterr,tatives. Either the power of the nol. then adequate to throw off the yoke, and U~lOns to Impose restrictions must be broken; Ihey were compelled to accept a system in which they did not willingly acquiesce. The I': or It I?l~lstbe transformed from a negative into :·~··,\·. a positive I?ower "and, instead of having only l'uilure of their revolt, followed by a slight but ITal improvement of conditions led, to a great I the brake III their hands, the Trade Unions II n!cnt; to a mood of aCfluie.sce.nce.:and durinz i must assume control of the steering-wheel. 2 I he latter half of the ~in~te~;;tl; 'c~~tu~:y-tl;~ This statement, purely in terms of contend- ing economic powers, of the deadlock at which r:ll'tory system was carried on with a consider- the p,rese~t industrial system is arriving is ;1hie measure of resignation and even consent essentially incomplete ; for behind these powers Ill' the part of the workers, who still sought to are the wills that wield them. The deadlock iIIITH'ovetheir position under the system, but ex!sts, not simply or mainly because an equili- rarely, as they had done, to end it altogether. brium of powers is being reached, but also Towards the end of the century, after the !~rowLhof the modern Socialist Movement and Ihe spread of organisation among new sections ~ Th~~ ig-Tl.oreH. fOT. the moment the SUPDosC{l ultcmative of U joint control, which IS discussed later, see p, Hl6. ,>I'workers, the mood of revolt began again to T 111-:DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 23 22 GUILD SOCIALIS]VI ,1,:,llgc. Add to this the fact that war breeds grow; but even down to the war period, de- .t disrcgard of minor eonse<,]llenees and ,ft spite the unrest of the years immediately pre- ,. :l(lillcss for desperate remedies, and that It ceding 1914, it had hardly reached dimensions ,,:1roduccs a considerable dislocation into the sufficient seriously to alarm the governing \It,rk ing of the ordinary mechanism of Society, classes, OJ' to threaten the impending over- :'11<1into the factorv most of all, and you have throw of the capitalist system. :t1 1I he essential cm;ses of the profound change The war, not so much by introducing new 1I11·W1lhas come over the attitude of the factors as by hastening immensely the opera- II t1i·king-dass in an the industrialised co\mtries, tion of those which were already at work, This chang"e of attitude was SWIft III pro- completely altered the situation. Not in one, "'Will!! a change in the actual industrial situa- but. in many countries, it brought the move- 1,.,1\ Not onlv did it make the workers more ment of revolt to a head, leading in some eases r.":Id'\,to embark on disputes, both great and to actual revolution, but in far more to a state '.IId"l, whether with the Covernillent or with of tension which, without producing imrnediate II)("il'employers: it also very greatly affected revolution, threw the capitalist system largely t lu-ir everyday state of mind in the factory out of gear. This occurred because every- :llId at th~jr work. Not only did they learn where the war brought to the organised work- III strike more readily: they were visited ing-class an immensely increased consciousness liv an increasing unwillingness to work for of their strength, and of the possibility of ":"Ipitalistmasters, The effect of this was seen translating that strength into recognised' and :II once not only in more c(msta~t facto~y effective social power. It also largely dis- I,i('kerings, but also and far more III a rapid credited capitalism as a method of production hll in in~dividualoutput, which no application and caused the State-the political machinery ,:1'.. incentives to produ('tion," whether in the of Society--to assume more nakedly and ob- l'orm of " payment by results" 0'1' of pamph- viously the shape of an instrument of class- 1('1s and other exhortations to " produce more domination, TI,e Russian Revolution, more- i1\ l.he cause of industrial prosperity and na- over, however Bolshevism as a policy was Iionul revival" availed to check. Thus, at the regarded, produced everywhere a very power- \ ('I'V moment when the external threat of the ful effect on the minds of the workers, and I'o\~"erful working-class organisations to eapi- the knowledge of it, mingling in their eon- I nlist and the capitalist State began to look sciousness with the other factors, created on 11I()st threatening, the capitalist system began their part a disposition far more ready for 24 GL'ILD SOCIALISM 1'111': DEMAND FOR FREEDOM 25 to find itself also undermined from within bv III' 'II interest, Moreover, the decreasing the reluctance of the workers to serve it as ,II"' back to the factories and compelled to produce , III'" with the real balance of economic COIll- in the days of the former revolts, have now, 1,,'I"I\('c. Out of such a sit~lation must. come owing to the increased absolute power of the I, \ ••Iutionarv change, WIth or WIthout organised workers of to-day, lost most of their \ 1 •• l.ncc : U;e object of Guildsmen is to in- effect. Everywhere the workers are proceed- I, uu i this coming revolution with a construe- ing steadily with the undermining of the 11\,' spirit, and to devise for its furthe.ranee a capitalist order of Society. I" ,siIive policy in harmony both With ~he Guild Socialists, then, 'not uiercly envisage "',pil'ations of the common, pe.ople m~d With the present position as one that can onlv con- III(' capacity of the orgamsat]()~ which ~he tinue for a limited period and at the cost of "(lllllIlOn people have made for their protection progressive deterioration, and believe that they IIl1<1el'capi talism, have rightly conceived of the best general form (:Ilild Socialism therefore appears largely for the next stage of social development to :t~ a theory of institutions and as a policy assume: they also definitely pin their faith to d irccted t~ the transformation of the social an expansion, both in function and in mem- .t ructure. It is this, however, not because it bership, of the organisations which the workers lvlieves that the life of men is comprehended have created for their own defence, and hold iII their social machinery, but because social that the signs of this expansion are evervwhere 111:whinery,as it is good or bad, harmonious or to he detected in the present tenden"'cies of discordant with human desires and instincts, working-class policy, They see the dash be- is the means either of furthering, or of thwart- tween the old order and the new both as a ing, thc expression of human personality. If struggle for power of rival social classes, pos- «nvironment does not, as Robert Owen sessing and dispossessed, and as a striving by 1 hought, make character in an abso!ute s~nse, the organised workers for the assllmption ~f it. does direct and divert character mto diver- social functions which they feel themselves ~cnt forms of expression, Environment, in increasingly well able to perform in the com- modern Societies at least, is very largely a 2{) GUILD SOCIALISyl matter .of s(~cial mechanism. To get the mee~lallIsm right, and to adjust it as far as possIble ,to the expression of men's social wills, IS ther~fore the surest way, not onlv to the ,~ell-bell1g of the body politic, but to 'the hap- pm.ess an.d sense of well-directed achievement wh!ch chiefly constitute individual well-being. It IS not because they idealise industrialism or social i~lstit:Itions that Guildsmen spend so CHAPTER II much t:m~ m theorising and planning about t~em: It IS because they sec the hest- chance TIlE RASIS OF DK\10CttACY o~ I.Hunan well-being in getting these aspects of life put firmly and properly into their right place. . I\ the course of the last chapter the point was , ('mphasised that for the constructive task of I '"winl reorganisation more is needed than a plan for the assumption of power by a social .lass, however equipped. There is also needed ~ :1 positive plan of action for that class to / \'III"SlIeboth in the course of and after its as- second is that the elector is culled upon to [unctum, All true and.democratic repr~sen- choose one man to represent him in relation I.it.ion is therefore fnnctwnal representation, to every conceivable question that may come The structure of any democratic Society before Parliament, whereas, if he is a rational 1IIIIstbe in harmony with these essential prin- being, he always certainly agrees with one t"i pies. Where it employs the .represer:tative man ahout one thing and with another about method, this must be always III relation to another, or at any rate would do so as soon -« line definite function. It follows that there as the economic basis of present class divisions 1IIIIStbe, in the Society, as many separately was removed. ..I('('ted groups of representatives as there are The omnicompetent State, with its omni- distinct essential groups of functions to be competent Parliament, is thus utterlv unsuit- p(,rformed. Smith cannot represent Brown, able to any really democratic community, and .Iones and Robinson as human beings; for a nn~st be destroyed or painlessly extinguished 1I1I1Ilanbeing, as an individual, is fundamental- as It has destroyed or extinguished its rivals in II incapable of being represented. He can the sphere of communal organisation. VVhat- (;lIly represent the common I~oint of vie.w ever th~ structl~re of the new Society may be, whic-h Brown, Jones and Robinson hold in the GUlldsllla~lISsure that it will have no place relation to some definite social purpose, or for the survival of the factotum State of to-dav, !~T()lIPof connected purposes. Brown, Jones :111(1Robinson must therefore have, not one 'I.'l~~essentials of democratic representation, '( ,te each, but as many different functional positively stated, are, first, that the repre- ,.(-tes as there are different questions calling sented shall have free choice of, constant con- f, 'I' associative action in which they are in- +oo+ u';~h ~_,1 ~~-- _., 11. t -, t.: v"v~ "UH, 'UIU cousrceranre con 1'0 over, ms t crested, representative." The second is that he should It should be noted that the argument, up be called upon, not to choose someone to I() the point to which we have at present represent him as a man or as R citizcn in all "arried it, does not suggest or prescribe any the aspects of citizenship, but only to choose 1':lrtieular type of constituency or arrangement SOI?leOneto represent his point of' view in re- ,,1" the franchise. It does not lay down that lation to sO.meparticular purpose or group of men should vote by geographical, or that they purposes, in other words, SOllie particular -Jiould vote by occupational, constituencies, 2 "1'that they should do both. All that we have th It atm noft suggcs ting that the representative should he reduced to e s a us 0 a delegate. But on this see later. p. lSBJf. let established is that man should have as 3 1'111': BASTS OF DEMOCRACY 35 34 GUILD SOCIALISM II" I,.rlll of representative government or many distinct, and separately exercised, votes, ,.I1 _~"""''''-'''' •••J1.,o••••.j!O",.," •. "",--,,- THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 39 GUILD SOCIALISM 38 body of consumers and the whole body of managed, the adJ?inistrators appointed, the producers are practically the same people, only conditions determined, and, above all, to the ranged in the two cases in different formations. amount of freedom at his work which the There can be no real divergence of interests worker by hand or brain enjoys. When, on between them. It is a problem not, as in the other hand, a State Socialist 01' a Co- present-day Society, of economic warfare, but operator speaks of the need for " consumers' of reasonable democratic organisation on a control,", he is thinking mainly of the quantity functional basis. and quality of the goods supplied, of the The Guild Socialist contends, then, that the cxcell~nce of the distribution, of the price of internal management and control of each in- sal~-m short, of a set of considerations which dustry or service must be placed, as a trust on wh~]e the?" are intimately bound up with thos~ behalf of the community, in the hands of the ~vlllCh chiefly c,oncern the producer, are still workers engaged in it; but he holds no less m, essene~ distinct, and have to do far less strongly that full provision must be made for w~th ~he internal cond~lct of the industry than the representation and safeguarding of the with Its, external relations. They are so to consumers' point of view in relation to each speak, I~S "foreign politics" as vie~ed by service. Similarly, he contends that general the foreigners, questions of industrial administration extend- Naturally, if these vital distinctions are not ing to all industries should, where they mainly ~nade, e~~h, o~ t~e claimants to "control of concern the whole body of producers, be en- industry IS inclined to claim the whole or trusted to an organisation representing all the at ?est to r~l~gate the other to a quite sub- producers; but he holds equally that the o~'dl.nat~ po;'atlOn. Moreover, even when the general point of view of ali types of consumers dlstmctl?n IS clearly stated, there is a strong must be fully represented and safeguarded temptation. for those who belong to either in relation to industry as a whole. The mere movement to claim too much for their own detailed working out of this principle will The G~ild Socialist endeavours to hold th; occupy a considerable part of this book: and scales fmrly; and to decide, as far as the matter for the present it must be left in the shape of can b~ dec~ded except in practice, what arc It generalisation. I claim, however, that, so the fair claims on each side. far as it goes, it satisfies the conditions of de- In doing this, the. Cui.ldsman has not to face mor-racy in a way which neither State So- ~ny problem of arbitrating between divergent cialism, nor Co-operativism, nor Syndicalism, interests, In a democratic Society, the whole -_..._ ...__._------40 GUILD SOCIALISM TilE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 41 nor any alternative proposal hitherto brought "1 I"lgard as self-government in any association forward is able to parallel. :I ",\'"lclll which does not give to them directly This, however, may be dismissed by "prac- II', ;1 ,l.(TOUP the right of framing their common tically-minded " people as a purely theoretical II d('.~to govern their internal affairs, and of disquisition, and it is therefore advisable to "hoI Ising, by their own decisions, those who state the case in a more practical way, by :11",' to hold office and authority in their midst. relating it closely to what was said in the last This being so, no solution of the problem chapter concerning the changing psychology • ,I' industrial government is really a solution of the workers. Let us therefore ask ourselves :Ji all unless it places the rights and responsi- whether, if all industry passed under the man- l,ililics of the internal conduct of industry agement of a "State," however democratic, din,..tly upon the organised bodies of pro- or of a Co-operative Movement, however en- (liIt'CI'S. On no other condition will men who lightened, the workers engaged in its various II:I\,(~ risen to a sense of social capacity and branches would have the sense of being free I" Iwer consent to serve or to give of their best. and self-governing in relation to their work. ,\ nv other attempted solution will therefore It is true that they would be voters in the llicak down before the unwillingness of the democratic State, or members of the Co- workers to produce, and will afford no way operative Society, and would therefore, in a "I' escape from the impasse to which we hav~ sense, be ultimately part-controllers in some :dready been brought by the denial under degree of their conditions; but would they l:lpitalism of the human rights of Labour. It regard this as freedom, when, although their i-, 0111' business, then, to accept unreservedly concern in the internal arrangements of their I his claim of the producer, and at the same industry was far closer than that of others, I imc to reconcile it with the consumer's claim they h;d at most only the same voice with Ilult. his voice shall also count. We shall see others in determining them. Obviously, the I hat there is nothing impossible or even diffi- answer is that they neither would, nor could «ul]:in this reconciliation. be expected to, take any such view; for, by !\'ofL--In this chapter I have not challenged the correctness of the the time their share in determining conditions , 'Ilk Socialist claim that the State Hrepresents the consumer," Imu)' I v, however, here that I do not accept this contention and therefore had gone its roundabout course through the 01" riot equate State with Co-opera.tive manngemeut uf'industr)-'. As. howe-ver, State Socialists and Co-opcrativists usc the same arguments in consumers' organisation, it would have ceased l:i vuur of consumers' management. the difference between them does II,d nrlsc in connection with thls chapter. See later page 84 where to be recognisable as even the most indirect till' point is dealt with more fully. " sort of freedom. Men will never recognise A GUILD IN BEING 43 The media-val Gild was essentially local, and l.he Gilds in a single town formed a separate system. This applies less to the merchant than to the craft bodies, but it is true as a generalisa- lion, and especially true of the British Gilds. CHAPTER III This fact, which corresponds to the compara- tive localisation of markets owing to the scanty A GULD IN BEING facilities for transit, of course largely accounts for the break-up of the Gilds at the close of the TUE name" Guild" is taken from the Middle Middle Ages. The medireval Gild again was Ages. Throughout the medi:-eval peri?d ~he an association of independent producers, each predominant form of industnal. organisation O[ whom worked on his own with a small throughout the civilisation of C.hr~stendo~ was number of journeymen and apprentices, ~t the Gild or Guild, an association of inde- w as an organisation based on small-scale handi- pendent producers or merchants for the re¥ula- craft production, and it broke down before the tion of production or sale. T~e medllev~l nr-curnulation of wealth which made large-scale Gild was not indeed confined to industry : It enterprise possible. The Gild was a regulative was the common form of popular association rather than a directly controlling or managing in the rnedireval town. There were Gilds for body, It did not itself manage the industry, social and charitable, and for educational, as though it sometimes acted as a purchasing well as for industrial purposes; and every Gild, agent for materials: it left actual management whatever its specific function, had a strong in the hands of its members, the master-crafts- religious basis and an essentiall¥ rcligio~lsfor.rn. men : but it laid down elaborate regulations This is not the place to enter into a d]SCUSSlOn )~(Jve;'ningthe actions and professional ~ode of of the rise, organisation and decline of the I he members. These regulations, which are medieeval system; but it is necessary.to show, l.he essence of the media-val Gild system, had both what are the fundamental differences as their basis the double object of maintaining between medireval Gilds and modern Guilds,' both the liberties and rights of the craft and its and what is the essential unity of idea between tradition of good workmanship and faithful them. «ommunal service, as expressed in the" Just 1 I have adopted the more correct H Gild U .in ~pea~i!lg of the in- dustria) organisation of the Middle Ages. while retanung t.he more Price." They declared war on shoddy work, fumiliar U Guild" to denote the modern theory. (In extortion ~nd usury, and on unregulated 42 GUILD SOCIALISM A GUILD IN REING 45 production. They afforded to their members ,IIher is manifestly breaking down. It is un- a considerable security, and an assured com- dllllbtedly the case that, though there were munal status. They held, in medireval Society, .'>2 GUILD SOCIALISM A GUILD IN BEING 53 How, then, will these Guild leaders be Cuild leaders will be election "from below," chosen? That it will be by the Guild itself by those whom the leaders will have to lead. goes without saying; for their imposition upon This principle, however, is fully eompatible it from withuut would at once and utterly with certain necessary safeguards. Whenever destroy its democratic character. But this a post requires, in addition to personal fitness does not mean that every type of leader must for leadership, of which those who are to be led be chosen by a mass ballot of the whole Guild. are the best judges, definite qualifications of Let us begin our answer by removing from skill or technique, the possession of these the discussion the man who is chusen, mainly qualifications can be made a condition of or exclusively because he possesses a particular eligibility for the position. A shipowner technical qualification, for the performance of to-day can only appoint as captain qf his ship a function which is essentially technical. He a man who holds a master's certificate. The is not really a leader, but a consultant or seamen of the future Guild will only be able to adviser, and the matter of choosing him is an choose as their captain a man who "is similarly expert question which does not raise the demo- equipped. And such certificates of technical cratic issue. It is for the leaders in the real qualification will be issued, as they are in some sense-the men who, while they may require r-ases to-day, by bodies predominantly repre- special expert skill or technical knowledge, are sentative of those already qualified, but with not chosen for these alone, but mainly for per- safeguards against the adoption by such bodies sonal character or ability-the men whose work of an unduly exclusive attitude. is mainly that of directing the work of others, Again, there is no need to lay it down as a of moving the energies of a grol1p of men rigid principle that the leader must, in every towards an accepted end, of expressing the cor- case, be chosen by the actual group of workers porate solidarity and co-operative spirit of the whom he is to lead, and that no other worker group-that we are here concerned to find the of the same calling is to play any part in the right principle of choice. To me it seems clear c-hoice, I believe, indeed, that, in nine cases that, for any function which demands thus out of ten at least, the right way is for the essentially the eo-operations of wills, the only actual group that needs a leader to choose him, right principle is that the person who is to per- and that, with the full establishment of indus- form it should be chosen by those in co-opera- trial democracy, this method would become tion with whom it is to be exercised. That is practically universal; but there is no need to to say, the governing principle in the choice of make it a rigid rule, provided that in every case I A GUILD IN BEING 55 54 GUILD SOCIALISM raises the whole question of direct versus in- the choice is made by men who are subject to direct election, with which I shall have to deal similar leadership within the same calling and later in connection with a very much wider over a reasonably small area. Thus, the managers of a number of building jobs in the problem. This discussion of the methods of choosing same district might conceivably be best leaders under a democratic industrial system appointed by the building workers of the dis- may seem to be somewhat dull and detailed; trict as a whole, rather than by the workers on hut it is one of the fundamental problems of each particular job; but this is an exception, (iuild Socialism. For the most frequent argu- due to the shifting character of building opera- ment urged against industrial democracy is tions. As a general practice, the men on that it is incompatible with workshop discipline the job should choose their leaders for the and productive efficiency, and recent utterances job. of the Russian Bolshevik leaders seem to indi- This applies with the greatest force of all in cate that they have come round, temporarily at the smallest area over which industrial leader- least, to this view. Let us admit immediately ship is normally exercised. It is indispensable that the institution suddenly to-day of a com- to industrial democracy that the foremen, the plete system of democratic choice of leaders first grade of industrial supervisors, should be such as I have outlined would be attended by chosen directly by the particular body of men enormous difficulties. The workers have no with whom they are to work; for, unless they experience of industrial democracy: they have are so chosen, the spirit of co-operation will not been accustomed to regard those who hold be set flowing at its source, and the whole authority in capitalist industry as their natural organisation will bc deprived of its democratic cnenlies; and they could not, in a moment, impulse. Within the factory, direct election revise the habits of a lifetime, or become fully by the individual workers concerned will pro- imbued, in a day or a year, with the new con- bably be the best way of choosing nearly all the ception of leadership as a co-operation of wills. leaders; but, when units of organisation larger The new system will have to make its way than the factory are reached, I do not suggest gradually, and it will not be perfectly and that direct election by the whole body of securely established until it too has become an workers is any longer the best or the most instinct and a tradition. vVe have, however, democratic course. Election by delegates in the long run, no alternative to trying it; for representing the whole body may often be the old idea of leadership by the imposition of better and more democratic. This, however, e eee e_O "'_. _ 5(3 GUILD SOCIALISM A GUILD IN BEING tj7 will is breaking down with the old industrial l'or a keen desire on the part of the workers to system. co-operate with him in producing the best re- 'Ve must not, then, in estimating the merits sults, and, at the worst, there could be between and possibilities of democratic leadership, con- him and them no such barrier as is presented centrate our attention too much on the difficul- by the fact that the manager in a factory to-day ties which would attend its instantaneous intro- holds his position as the nominee of a capitalist duction : we must try to imagine it as it would employer. bc after a period of experience, when the I strongly suspect that the managers in such workers were getting used to it, and the purely it Guild factory would have no cause to com- initial difficulties had been overcome. What, plain of lack of power. If they wanted under these conditions, would be the new rela- authority, they would find ample scope for it ; tion between the leader and those whom he but I believe most of them would soon cease would have to lead? to think of their positions mainly in terms of In a certain sense, he would clearly be less power, and would come to think of them in- powerful. He could not, in a democratic stead mainly in Lerms of function. Only under Guild association, have the uncontrolled power the free conditions of democratic industrv would of the" sack," the right to send a man to priva- the leader find real scope for leadership; and he tion and possibly worse without appeal. For would find it in a way that would enable him the Guild members would insist that a man to eonccntrate all his 'facult.ies on the develop- threatened with dismissal should be tried by his ment of his factory as a communal service, peers, and every Guildsman would surely have instead of being, as now, constantly thwarted behind him a considerable measure of economic and restrained by considerations of share- security. N or would he be able to ignore holders' profit. There is no class of " indus- public opinion in the factory or in the Guild as trious persons," as the Chartists would have a whole as a capitalistic manager can ignore it. said, to whom the Guild idea ought to have a But to set against these losses-if they were to stronger appeal than to the managers and be so regarded-he would have far more than technicians of industry; for it alone offers them countervailing gains. He would have a good full opportunities to use their ability in co- prospect, if he used ordinary commonsense, of operation with their fellow-workers and for the having the public opinion of the factory deci- service of their fellow-men. sively on his side in his attempt to make things A Guild factory, then, would be a natural go wen and smoothly: he would be able to look centre of self-government, no longer, like the , .-~------58 GUILD SOCIALISM A GUILD IN BEING 59 factories of to-day, a mere prison of boredom Ihc right, but the workers still desired his dis- and useless toil, but a centre of free service and missal, the case should go for judgment to a associative enterprise. There would, of course, higher tribunal of the Guild. But even so I bc dull and unpleasant work still to be done in t.hink that after a certain lapse of time the the world; but even this would be immeasur- workers under him should have the right ably lightened if it were done under free condi- 1.0 remove him; for a sustained desire to do so tions and if the right motives were enlisted on would prove incompatibility of temperament, its side.' which would unfit him for the co-operative task In this factory there would doubtless be of democratic leadership in that particular workshop committees, meetings, debates, vot- factory. He might go through no fault of his ing, and all the phenomena oJ: democratic own; but in that case he would be likely soon organisation; but, though these are essential, to find an opening elsewhere. . they are not so much of the quintessence of the This factory of ours is, then, to the fullest new thing as the co-operative spirit which they extent consistent with the character of its ser- exist to safeguard. Given free choice of leaders vice, a self-governing unit, managing its own and free criticism of them when chosen, a good productive operations, and free to experiment deal of the mere machinery of democracy might to the heart's content in new methods, to remain normally in the background. develop new styles and products, and to adapt But there is one further point on which we itself to the peculiarities of a local or individual must touch in order to make our picture of the market. This autonomy of the factory is the leader's position complete. What security of safeguard of Guild Socialism against the dead tenure would he have, and how could he be level of mediocrity, the more than adequate removed if he failed to give satisfaction? The substitute for the variety which the competitive workers who chose their manager need not have motive was once supposed to stimulate, the an unrestricted right to recall him at any guarantee of liveliness, and of individual work moment. Before he could be deposed, he and workmanship. With the factory thus largely conducting its should have the right to appeal to his peers- own concerns, the duties of the larger Guild his fellow-managers; and, if they held him in organisations would be mainly those of co- 4 Moreover, how much of the world's rcallv dull or unpleasant work ordination, of regulation, and of representing could we do away with if we really gave our minds to that instead or the Guild in its external relations. They to profit- morurertng ! Machinery would make short work of much; and much we could simply do without. would, where it was necessary, co-ordinate the 60 GUILD SOCIALISM A GUILD IN BEING 61 production of various factories, so as to make direct may often afford a more truly democratic supply coincide with demand. They would result than direct election. probably act largely as suppliers of raw The essential thing about this larger organi- materials and as marketers of such finished pro- sation is that its functions should be kept down ducts as were not disposed of directly from the I() the minimum possible for each industry. factory. They would lay down general regula- For it is in the larger organisation and in the tions, local or national, governing the methods assumption by it of too much centralised power of organisation and production within the Ihat the danger of a new form of bureaucracy Guild, thcy would organise research, and they resulting in the ossification of the Guild may be would act on behalf of the Guild in its relations found. A small central and district organisa- both with other Guilds, and with other forms Iion, keeping within a narrow interpretation of of organisation, such as consumers' bodies, Ilie functions assigned to it, may be an extra- within the community, or with bodies abroad. ordinarily valuable influence in stimulating a This larger Guild organisation, as we have shlggish factory; but a large central machine seen, while it need not conform in all cases to will inevitably at the same time aim at concen- any particular structure, must be based directly Irating power in its own hands and tend on the various factories included in the Guild. I()reduce the exercise of this power to a matter That is to say, the district Guild Committee of routine. 1£the Guilds are to revive crafts- must represent the various factories belonging mnnship and pleasure in work well done; if to the Guild in the district, and probably also they are to produce quality as well as quantity, in most eases must include representatives of ;lIIdto be ever keen to devise new methods and the various classes of workers, by hand or brain, utilise every fresh discovery of science without included in the Cuild. The national Com- I()ss of tradition; if they are to breed free men mittee must similarly represent districts and capable of being good citizens both in industry classes of workers, in order that every distinct .md in every aspect of communal life; if they point of view, whether of a district or of .ne to keep alive the motive of free service- a section, may have the fullest possible chance Ihey must at all costs shun centralisation. For- of being stated and considered by a representa- t unately, there is little doubt that they will do tive bodv, To the choice of the district and ~(); for men freed from the double centralised national' officers of the Guild much the same \" autocracy of capitalist trust and capitalist State arguments apply as to that of other leaders, II rc not likelv to be anxious to make for them- save that, as we saw, over the larger areas in- ~dvcs a new'industrial Leviathan. They will 62 GUILD SOCIALISM rate their freedom high; and highest they will rate that which is nearest to them and most affects their daily life-the freedom of the factory, of the place in which their common service to 'the community is done. CHAPTER IV THf: GUILD SYSTK\-I IN INDUSTRY I N the last chapter, I attempted to present a picture of the working of a Guild as a demo- «ratic industrial association. 'Ve have now to xl udy the working of the Guilds as an industrial -vstern, their relations one with another, and I heir extension over the field of industry and "llillmerce. And here the first question that f:l('cs us is whether the Guild method of organi- .nl ion is suitable to all industries, or whether, i II certain eases, other forms of organisation will have to be devised to work side by side, .uid in harmony, with the Guilds. This is by no means a simple question to .mswer ; for it requires a good deal of explana- Iion in order to make its meaning plain. It is uumifest that, in most of its details, the :\Iational Guild proposal has been worked out mainly in relation to the great large-seale in- .lustries and services which dominate modern ,'('onomic life. On the other hand, there is 63 (j4 GUILD SOCIALISM GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 65 certainly nothing in the fact either that an perfectly express the spirit, of the Guild industry is small, or that it follows methods of system. Just as factory autonomy is vital in small-scale production, to make it unsuitable order to keep the Guild system alive and for Guild organisation. Indeed, in many re- vigorous, the existence of varying democratic spects those small-scale industries in whicl; the types of factories in independence of the element of craftsmanship most exists will find National Guilds may also be a means of valu- it easiest to understand and adopt the Guild able experiment and fruitful initiative of indi- form and the Guild spirit. It is, however, the vidual minds. In insistently refusing to carry c~se that the field of industry includes, in addi- their theory to its last " logical" conclusion, bon to certain forms of production and service the Guildsmen are true to their love of freedom which are dearly distinct and capable of and varied social enterprise. national eo-ordination, others which are more Moreover, I, at any rate, if I can see the scattered and difficult to attach to any national Guild system firmly established in the main in- combination. This applies abov'e all to dustries, feel no anxiety that the forms of factories manufacturing a highly individual organisation which survive or are created in the form of product, or catering for a quite special rest of industry will be out of harmony with the taste. Guild idea. Above all, I would let alone, and The National Guild form of organisation leave with the greatest possible freedom of should be loose and elastic enough to admit into development, the small independent producer a single Guild many varieties of factory, and or renderer of service, leaving it to the future the greater part of these "individual" fac- to determine how far the services in which he is tories would attach themselves to a National cngaged are naturally led to adopt definitely Guiid. But I can see no objection to-rather Guild forms, or only to bring their organisation cvcry advantage in-factories which do not into harmony with essential Guild principles. naturally form such an attachment remaining An attack on the independent producer in the independent. With the National Guild fornl interests of large-scale organisation would be a of organisation predominant in industrial fatal step for the Guild system, and, providing Society, such factories would, of course, have that his operations CHn be purged of the to conform to the vital Guild conditions, and capitalist taint and the opportunity of exploit- they would, in ~ost cases, naturally assume ing labour removed, it is much best to "let themselves a GUIld form and reproduce almost well alone." This applies not only to small exactly the structure, and perhaps even more workshops and craftsmen, but also to many 5 "-_... ---.------~--- r uG GUILD SOCIAl,ISM GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 67 professions, and, in special ways which require properly industrial n:nd of their comme~cial further detailed discussion, to some kinds of aspects. The financial system, and especially tradesmen in the business of distribution and industrial banking, must obviou~ly. become to the farmers in agriculture. integral parts of the Guild or~amsahon, and It follows that there is no need in all cases the Banking System must obviously be under to .claim for eueh National Guild a monopoly the control of the Guilds which it would have to of Its own form of production. There is need finance. If the Guild arguments npply to one for it to take over and guildise all capitalist capitalistic industry or service, they apply to concerns, and all concerns that cannot adapt all, and their democracy is just as necessary ~or themselves to essential Guild principles and to a distributive or commercial as for a productive the democratic spirit; but actual monopoly, group of workers. . while it may be necessary in some instances, Assuming, then, the existence of largely and may arise naturally in such cases as mines decentralised National Guilds covering all the and railways, is at best always a necessary evil, vital industries and services, let us see how these even for a Guild. The "monopoly of Guilds would be related one to another. Labour " is a necessary instrument for fighting While all forms of production and economic capitalism; but it would not be wise to build service are, in the last resort, undertaken for the new order in the spirit of monopoly. I do the benefit of the ultimate user or consumer, a not mean that I contcmplate the existence of great part of both is actually of an intermediate two National Guilds administering the same character. The greater part of the product of kind of service; but there might well be in the iron and steel or of the coal industry, for some cases several regional or local Guilds, exarrmle. sroes.not directly to the ultimate con- and in others factories not connected with ;~;;~~~;,-blrt-t~'other indu~tries which use it .for the . National Guild of their industry. or purposes of further pr?ductio? or ~ervlce. service. Similarly, the transport industries, while they Apart from such exceptions, however, which carry millions of passengers and of personal would extend in all over only a small part of packages belonging to passenger~, ar~ even the field of industry, the Guild system is put more engaged in carrying goods which wII~only forward as a plan of general industrial applica- reach the consumer, if at all, through the inter- tion. Under it all the great industries of pro- mediacy of another industry. Of the to~al duction, transport and distribution are capable volume of exchange, therefore, under a Gmld of being conducted, in respect both of their system as under any other, a large percentage 68 GUILD SOCIALISM GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 69 would take place between one industry or ser- factories belonging to different Guilds would vice and another, That is, there would be an often establish direct relations and work by the immense mutual traffic among the Guilds. method of direct exchange. Moreover, the relations between Guilds would In addition to this close relationship between vary widely in closeness and importance from individual Guilds and parts of Guilds, under case to casco Thc transport and manufactur- which each Guild and its parts would probably ing industries, for example, would all have enter into a vast variety of special connections, very close and constant relations with the coal there would be co-ordination and common industry, and nearly all the industries making' action among the whole body of the industrial finished products would have very close rela- Guilds. This brings us to our first considera- tions with the distributive industrv. On the tion of the Congress of Industrial Guilds, and other hand, the pottery and cott~n industries of its place in the Guild structure. Its wider would have few, if any, direct points of contact place in the organisation of Society as a whole with each other. we cannot consider until we have completed our Clearly, where two or more Guilds stood in picture of the other forms of essential associa- a dose and constant mutual relationship of this tion in the Guild community. character, there would have to be specially close The Industrial Guilds Congress, successor to connections established between them. Each the Trades Union Congress of to-day, would would require on its staff experts who under- represent directly every Guild concerned with stood the technique of the others, and there industry or economic service. 1 It too would would have to be special joint committees, and have it~ local and regional counterparts in local probably-the equivalent of some interlocking and regional Guild Councils, successors to the directorates of to-day-mutual exchange of Trades Councils and Federations of Trades seats on the governing bodies of the Guilds. Councils which now exist. And again, in order And all this network of mutual relationships that the tendency to a centralising point of would exist fully as much locally and regionally view may be avoided, these local Councils, or as it would nationally; for the need of avoiding at least the regional Councils representative of centralisation extends quite as much to the them, should -be directly represented in the processes of exchange and to inter-Guild rela- Industrial Guilds Congress. The local point tions as to production. The Guilds would I It mig-lit also well include represerrtat.ives from tl?e enterprisca establish relations and negotiate exchange to a organised on essentially Guild lines, but not included In a National great extent locally, and probably particular Guild. 70 GUILD SOCIALISM GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 71 o,f view will requ~re to be strongly put, and, tions within which each Guild would have to s,mcethe bulk of mter-Guild exchange will be work. likely to take place locally, these Local Guild This brings us very close indeed tO,a pr?blem Council~ ~ill clearly be bodies of very great which has probably been for some time Ill:t~e economic Importance. readers' mind. How is the pay of the indi- The Industrial Guilds Congress, to some vidual Guildsman, and of the various grades extent as the central Trade enion body is re- of workers in a Guild, to be determined, and ported to be in Russia to-day, would be the how is the level of payment as between the fin~l r~presen,tati,:,e body of the Guild system various Guilds to be adjusted? on Its industrial side, and would have the vital One of the most important tasks entrusted function of laying down and interpreting the to the central Trade Union organisation in essential principles of Guild organisation and Russia has been that of drawing up, on the practice. It would be, in fact, on questions advice of the various Unions, elaborate requiring central co-ordination, the Guild legis- schedules of payment for almost every conceiv- lature, and, either itself or through a sub- able class of industrial workers. We may hope ordinate organ, the ultimate court of appeal on that the need for quite such detailed regulation purely Guild questions. Many of its most im- will not present itself in a Guild Society; but portant functions cannot be discussed until we dearly a closely analogous function will fall to come to consider it in its relations to other the Industrial Guilds Congress. If we assume bodi~s in the community; but we can say here any inequality of payment to continue-and to that It would act as the representative of the this point we shall come shortly-clea,rly the Guilds as a whole in their common external levels of remuneration to be paid to ~hffe~en~ rel~tions, bo~h wit~ other parts of the body classes of workers will need to be regulated, at SOCIal,and with GUIld and other organisations any rate in general terms, by some central abroad. One of its functions, but by no means bods. Guildsmen used to hold that one way among the most important, would ~ to adjudi- of dealing with this question would be to allow cate on inter-Guild difficulties and disputes, the each Guild to allocate to its salary fund a sl~m local Guild Councils acting as normal courts of exactly proportionate to the number of 1tS first instance on such questions. But its most members, and to divide this sum among them important internal Guild function would be as it might choose; but I am now. doubtful that of laying down the general principles of whether this method would be practicable,. at Guild conduct, in the form of general regula- any rate in the earlier stages, The alternative 72 GUILD SOCIALISM GUILD SYSTEM IN IKDUSTRY 73 seems t~ be for the ~alary scal~s drawn up by Lion," but by the destruction of the whole idea eac~ Gmld to be subject to review and modifi- of remuneration for work done, and the appre- ~atlOn b.f ,the Guilds Congress, which wiII be hension of the economic problem as that of m ~ position to adjust the claims of various dividing the national income, without regard sectlOn~of 'Yorkers, In suggesting this, I am Lo any particular work or service, among the D:0tlosmg SIght of the fact that other associa- members of the community, On this point, at tions besides industrial Guilds may have a close any rate, Bernard Shaw is right. conce,rn and claim to a voice in the salaries to Until the consciousness arises that will make be,paId, I admit this claim, and deal with the this change possible, some inequalities of re- POlI~t later in discussing the working of Guild muneration are likely to persist, although it is SoeletJ:'as a, communal system." Here I am quite possible, and indeed most likely, that only discussing what seems to me a practical particular factories or ~uilds, sei~iJ?g the me~hod of arriving at a fair balance between the essential justice of equah,ty and realising t~e varIOUSgroups of producers, impossibility of attempting t~ measure Ill: But, in taking Up this attitude, have I not economic rewards the respective values of a~sumed the case against equality of income? different kinds of service, will take the initia- ~ es-and yet, emphatically, no, I assume Live in adopting equality for their own mdeed that equality of income cannot, and members, Their decisions will pass through must not, be made a condition of the establish- the Guilds Congress with the rest, and ment of the Guild system; for I am convinced will have their influence in leavening the tha,t the moral and psychological conditions whole, which would make such equality possible could In addition to the problem of pay, the Guilds dev~lop only in the atmosphere of a free Congress will have to survey, from the point Society, and ,even there only by a gradual of view of all the Guilds, the whole field pr,ocess, It IS essentially true that equality, of economic conditions, "Te can best see If It proves, as I think it must, the only solution wherein its essential work of laying down and of the problem of income, can only develop out raising the standard of conditions for all the ?f the ~ctual experience of free a~d democratic Guilds will consist by examining, in its general industrial aD:dsocial conditions; and I am sure outlines the status and economic position of that, when It docs come, it will come not in the w~rker engaged in Guild industry, the absurd guise of "equality of remunera- Wherein, apart from the factory and industrial democracy which we have discussed already, 2 See page 146. GUILD SOCIALISM GUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 7;'; will his position in industry differ from that of place in a system open to all. For the Guilds the wage-worker of to-day? One obvious will be, not closed corporations, but open difference is that unemployment, or rather loss associations which any man may join; and, of employment, as it now exists, will have should need arise, it will be one of the chief disappeared. There will bc no such thing as duties of the Industrial Guilds Congress and a ~Ulldsman who has lost his income because, indeed of the whole community, to preserve the owing to sl.acknes~ of work, he is out of a job, open door into the Guilds, and the career open or has had It drastically reduced because, from to merit up to the highest and most responsible the same cause, he is working short time. positions in them. This does not mean, of Every Guildsman will be assured of his full «ourse, that any person will be able to claim income from the Guild whatever the" state of admission as an absolute right, into the Guild the market," and, apart from other factors of his choice, In many occupations, there will which will cause the present fluctuations of be preliminary training, apprenticeship and hade to be greatly modified, this fuct will be an tests of fitness to be passed, and it will be the immense force in steadying the demand for business of the Congress to ensure the fairness commodities and services. Everv Guildsman of such tests, if it is challenged. Moreover, a will be" on the strength" of his Guild in sick- man clearly cannot get into a Guild unless it ness as well as in health; and hc will thus have needs fresh recruits for its work. He will have gain~d one thing which the wage-worker most free choice, but only of the available openings. manifestly lacks to-day-economic security- The Congress, however, will have, in case of and have gained it not by submitting to slavery need, to assure itself that no Guild is restricting (the slave has security of a sort); but as a con- its numbers, or refusing applicants, from any comitant of industrial freedom. ulLerior motive. There will be, in essence, Secondly, the Guildsman will have become, free choice of occupation. to a g;cat extent, his own indllstriallaw-givcr. But we must meet the inevitable question, lIe will have the sense of being an active parti- "Who will do the dirty work under Guild cipator in an industrial system based on the Socialism?" There have always been Socialists social recognition of free service. He will not who have favoured, for such work, a period of have to fear for his old age, or for his children's industrial conscription for everybody. I am future; for his service will ensure to him main- opposed to this, and I think nearly all Guilds- tenance at his standard when he retires and men are opposed to it. I am opposed first, before his children there will be an assured and most of all, hecause I do not want Guild 76 GUILD SOCIALISM nUILD SYSTEM IN INDUSTRY 77 Society to be based at any point on sheer for a brief part of their t.ime, a~ many a~ coercion, but also because I am sure that the original writer takes to hack journalism to-day. system would operate badly and unfairly. It is, moreover, unnecessary. Let us first by the fullest application of machinery and scientific methods eliminate or reduce to the narrowest limits all the forms of " dirty work" that admit of such treatment. This has never been tried; for, under capitalism, "dirty work" is the last thing to which invention is usually applied. It is cheaper to exploit and ruin human beings. This method would produce enormous results. Secondly, let us see what forms of "dirty work" we can do without, and make up our minds definitely that, if any form of work is not only unpleasant but degrading, we will do without it, whatever the cost. No human being ought to be either allowed or compelled to do work that degrades. Thirdly, for what dull or unpleasant work remains, let us offer whatever special conditions are required to attract the necessary workers, not in higher pay, but in shorter hours, holidays extending over six months in the year, conditions attrac- tive enough to men who have other uses for their time or attention to bring the requisite number to undertake it voluntarily. Under such conditions the doing of this work will fall, not to the outcasts of Society, hut to men whose lives are so full of desires to do unpaid work in their own individual way that they choose to earn their livings by doing dull work :1 The alternative would be bet ter; for it would not spoil his style. THE CONSTTMER 79 1'()J·ebe on service rather than on common interest ; but this is it very different matter from ignoring the common interests of eon- sumers altogether, or reducing their expres- sion to a quite subordinate place in Society. But have consumers a common interest? This is sometimes denied. It is stated that, while there may be a common interest and CHAPTER V point of view among a particular kind of con- sumers or users of a particular kind of product THE CONSUMER or service, there is no such thing as a common point of view of all consumers and users of all kinds of goods and services. On this view, \V ITO is the "consumer"? Some say he is Mr. Everybody, and therefore entitled to all particular groups of consumers have a reality po~er and consideration. Others say that, and a claim to consideration ; but "the con- being Mr. Everybody, he is also Mr. Nobody, sumer " as such is a mirage. and can be safely left out of account. In other In the case of the producers, details apart, words, some social theorists, as we saw in the Ihe lines of division and the bond of unity are second chapter, base their economic scheme alike clear enough. Production falls fairly on t~e c.ons.mner, on the ground that all pro- naturally into a number of distinct groups or duction IS directed to the satisfaction of needs, services, and at the same time the common "ll.-n·not.c>Y' in '.111 CPl"'~(OP .-)n,rl thp £lHnllllOTI p1p and that needs are everybody's lot· while others base their scheme ~n th~ prodl:cer, on ;l,:~·~ti~·ti;~'~'oi~t'~f~~i(~'\~:'(;f'~all~~;h~~~~;;;: the ground that all production is the result stand out distinctly, On the other hand, of service, and that with responsibilities and ~enerally speaking, we are all, or we should active functions should go power and control. be in an equalitarian community, more or less consumers of everything. Consumers are thus I have already tried to explain 'why I can- not H:ccept eith~r of these views in its entirety. not split up into a number of groups of in- dividuals, one group consuming one product I beheve that, III a very real sense, it is " more blessed to give than to receive," and that the and one another. emphasis of social organisation should there- There is one school of thought that will say 78 80 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSlJMER 81 that this impossibility of sorting consumers were treated as an undifferentiated mass. out into groups is the best possible indication What, then, is this principle? of their essential unity, and of the reality of \Ve have seen that this distinction cannot "the consumer." But this is to ignore the coincide with any distinction of individuals. vital principle on which social organisation A man is usually' either a miner or a railway- ought to proceed-the principle of function. man, and not both; but he consumes coal, uses The fact that, more or less, everybody com- the railways, and only limits the variety of his bines in himself all forms of consumption does «onsumption by his lack of opportunity. But not prove that all these forms can be regarded in both the essential social differentiation is as parts of a single function of his-" con- not that between individuals but that between sumption as a whole"; for he also combines interests or concerns, that is, between types in himself many other concerns-his concern of production and consumption. as a producer, for example-which clearly It is surely fairly clear, as soon as we adopt form no part of " consumption." The ques- this basis, that consumption-e-in which I in- tion, then, is not whether everybody consumes dude the use of economic services-falls into everything, or whether the consumer is " Mr. two main divisions, which may admit of fur- Everybody," but whether consumption, taken ther sub-division. The first division includes as a whole, forms a coherent social interest or consumption of It household or individual type, group of interests corresponding to produc- and extends roughly over all the ordinary tion, and, if so, whether it possesses any forms of purchase covered by the term " shop- principle of internal differentiation analogous ping." In this type of consumption, the in- to, ho\vevcr different from, the internal dif- dividunl purchaser or the housewife sanies forth ferentiation of forms of production. to buy commodities, in the purchase of which I believe that " consumption" does form in there' is generally a good deal of room for a real sense a coherent group of interests, and individual choice and variety of purc-hase. that it does possess an essential principle of One housewife prefers a "Ewbank" and differentiation. Rut I do not believe that any another a "Star Vacuum Cleaner": one real representation of consumers will be se- smoker fancies cut plug and another John cured unless this principle of internal differ- Cotton; and these differences are matters of entiation is observed, any more than producers taste and opinion fully as much as of price. would be properly represented if all production For convenience. we shall call this first division 6 I 82 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSUMER 88 of consumption " personal and domestic con- the collective group. The marginal cases, in sumption. " I fact, can be placed on either side of the division The second division includes all those forms according to convenience. of use or consumption in which, although the The attempt to establish this principle of individual may choose whether to use them or differentiation of forms of consumption is by not and in what particular quantity he will no means an arbitrary exercise of theoretical use them, the product itself is undifferentiated ingenuity, but has a very direct bearing on the and is supplied in the mass. I mav decid~ whole question of the place of the consumer whether or .not, or whither, to travei by rail- in Society. For a concentration of attention way or tram; but I cannot, at least under mainly on consumption of the first type has democratic conditions, order a special railway produced the school of thought which looks or tram. I may cut down or increase mv to the Co-operative Movement as the essential consumption of water or electricitv : but I protagonist of the consumer, while a concen- cannot order a special kind. Let u; ~all this tration on the second type has produced Col- second division of consumption "collective lectivism, especially in the form of Municipal consumption." These collective utility services Socialism. are in most cases of such a nature as to require monopolistic control. As we saw in an earlier chapter, both the State and Municipal Socialists and those Of course, t~ere are all kinds of cases falling I idealists who believe that the future industrial on the border-line between those two divisions. I system will be based on an extension of the For example, is bread differentiated or un- method of Co-operative trading to all indus- differentiated? Both it and milk fall on the 1 l 1" ~ 1 1 • 1 il tries and services' found their proposals on a ooruer-une. .nreau, nowever, lS closelv con- claim that "the consumer" 'mu'st control. nected with other forms of confectionery and Rut, whereas it is quite dear that the Co- f?o?stuffs; and therefore most naturally as- operators set out with their practical experi- similates itself to the domestic group. Milk and hutter probably go the same way. Gas, ence of organising one form of consumption and the Collectivists with the working of on the other hand, and coal arc consumed in nationalised and municipalised services mainly t~e hom~; but they are both so largely un- ~hfferentIat~d pr~ducts and are so largely used ] Such us the Women's Co-operative Guild, and Mr. L. S. woolr in his m connection with other collective services, hook, Go-operation and the Future of Ind-Itstr-y. Il should be noted that the Co-operative Movement as a whole is not necessarily committed that they naturally assimilate themselves to to this view. 8'~ GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSUMER 8.5 in mind, the thorough-going advocates of of the Trade Unions to be capable of serving either system are not as a rule inclined to as the basis for National Guilds. For Co- attach any greater importance to the distinc- operation, like Trade Unionism, is a great tion between the two main forms of consump- spontaneous movement of the working-class, tion. The Collectivists carry resolutions and has alwavs set before it the clear and calling for the nationalisation of all the means definite function of representing the claim of of production, distribution and exchange, and the working-class consumer, especially in re- thus lay themselves open to the charge, re- lation to goods of personal or domestic use. cently made by Mr. Asquith during the Secondly, it seems clear that the Co-opera- Paisley bye-election, of wishing to nationalise t.ivist contention that the representation of the the Co-operative Movement, while the Co- consumer eannot properly, in a democratic oper~tivists dwell on the dangers of handing Society, be entrusted to a "political" body over industry to be run by " political" bodies, i~ sound, and follows immediately upon th"e and stress the inadequacy of such bodies in functional principle which we laid down at the representing the consumer. The two theories outset. The representation of the consumer, thus evidently come into sharp conflict with \~hether generally or in relation to any par- each other, while both come into conflict, at t.icular type of consumption, must be a a different point, with the theory of Guild specific, functional, ad hoc representation and Socialism. this is not secured by entrusting it, as an ad- For the moment, we are concerned, not diLional responsibility, to a body which is with this latter conflict, but with the rival primarily political. But it does not follow claims of the Co-operative Movement and of from this that the Co-operativists. in destrov- the State and the Local Authority to repre- ing "political" nationalisation,' h;~~--~~tab- sent the consumer. It seems dear that there lished their own exclusive claim; for it seems are certain points which follow immediately dear that the functional principle would still on the principles which we laid down at th"e be violated if all " consumption" were treated beginning of this book. VVhatever may be as an undifferentiated mass, and its representa- th~ shortcomings of Co-operation to-day, its tion assigned to a single body. The questions daJ.m to be at least capable of serving as the and points of view which emerge, and the baSIS for a true representation of consumers outlook and capacity required, are different in in their. personal and domestic capacity must the case of personal and domestic consumption be admitted to be fully as strong as the claim on the one hand, and "collective" consump- 86 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSUMEH 87 tion on the other, and different forms of principle, and in complete violation of the representation and organisation are accord- whole functional basis on which we are ingly required for their expression. working, This leads us to the necessity of making a Let us assume thcn, that the duties of the further distinction. It is clear that "the present Local ~"\uthoritie.s have been divide~ State," the national governmental machine, among two or more bodies, and that one of is primarily and essentially a political body, these bodies, which we may call the "Col- and therefore cannot be a proper representa- lective Utilities Council;" has assigned to it tive of any form of consumption. But does only functions of a definitelyeconomic char- this apply, in the same sense, to the local lIet~r. As soon as this is the ease, the ar- authorities? It is, I agree, clear that the local O'ument against the Local Authority as a authorities, in their present form, are not suit- ;epresentative of consumption fails, and it able representatives of consumption; but this becomes fully as proper and natural a repre- is not so much because they are "political" sentative of "the consumer" in relation to as because they are not only perverted by class collective consumption as the Co-operative antagonism, but also attempt to combine, with Movement is in relation to personal and the economic function of representing con- domestic consumption. sumers, certain other functions which are We thus arrive at the conclusions, first, that neither economic nor political, but essentially consumers' representation is essential; second- civic. By this I mean functions connected ly, that Co-operation, or some form of or- with such' services as education, public health, ganisation arising out of it, i~ the I?roper and civic amenities generally, which certainly representative of the consumer III relation to cannot be properly brought under either the personal and domestic consumption; and, economic or the political category. A fuller thirdly, that the "Collective Utili~ies Coun- treatment of these civic services, in relation cil," inheriting a part of the functions of the both to those who render service in them and Local Authority of to-day, is the consumers' to those who use and enjoy them, must be proper representative in relation to collective reserved for the following chapter in which consumption as we have defined it. the Civic Guilds are discussed. Rut here we This brings us back to the question, of which can already establish the point that the com- we have already undertaken a preliminary dis- bination of " civic" and eollectivist functions cussion in Chapter II, of the proper relations, in a single body is manifestly wrong in under a democratic industrial system, between 88 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSUMER 89 the Guilds, as representatives of the producers, hest , and should feel tha~ every actio~ which and the future Co-operative Movement and they perform well is a direct and useful c~n- the Collective Utilities Council, as representa- tribution which they freely make to the service tives of the consumers. It has already been of the connHunity. The relation of th~ con- made dear that, in the Guild Socialist view, sumer and his rcpresentatives to a s~r':lce so the consumers' claim and interest does not organised is essentially nc:t a~tag,?mstIc but properly extend to the direct managemcnt of complementary. The main function ?f the industry, which would involve a servile status consumers' organisation is to make arbc,:latc for the producer, but to the safeguarding of and definite Ule consumers' needs and desIre.s, certain specific concerns of the consumer, in the expectation, not that the pr?dueer WIll mainly in connection with quantity and quality seek to thwart them, but that he WIllbe eag~r of production, adequacy of distribution to to elicit and respond to them because he ,:vI11 meet volume and variety of needs, and price have the strongest of social motives for doing of sale, with other closelv related concerns. so, and no sufficient motive. for (~oing ot~er- Since we discussed thi's point, we have set wise. The secondary function of protecimg forth as clearly as possible the internal working the consumer against the producer will ther~- both of a Guild, and of the Guilds as a whole. fore onlv come exceptionally into play, and It \Ve arc now therefore, with the organisation is a great mistake to conceive of it as the main on both producers' and consumers' behalf in reason for providing for consumers' repre- our minds, able to discuss, in 11 more con- I sentation. The provision for such prot~ctlOn crete way, the desira ble relations between ,I requires to be strong and .adequate; but, If ~he them. system works properly, It WIll be sel~om in- It is clear, from what we have said already v·oked. The real reason for consumers' :epre- that the normal conduct of each industry a~d sentation is that the "consuming" point ?f service is placed in the hands of a Guild, and view requires to be definitely expressed, in that the best chance for the consumers of order that articulate demand may co-operate securing really efficient, because willing and with, and direct the course of, organised communally inspired, service is to leave the supply. pro?llCer as far as possible to manage his own I conceive, then, of the dual form of con- affairs, The essence of the whole proposal is sumers' organisation-Co-operatiye and. Col- that the producers, as an organised profession, lective-existing in every town and VIllage should be put" on their honour" to do their and probably in every ward and hamlet, and 90 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CONSUMER 91 of the consumers' representatives meeting aetion between the Guilds and the consumers" e(Jnsta,ntly for discussion with the Guild repre- organisations at every stage, local, reglOnal sentatives. It IS no less essential that con- and national. This would take t~e form. b?th sumers', than that Guild, organisation should of direct relations between a particular Guild, ?e ,str<;mglydecentralised and vigorously local 01' section of a ~~uild, and either ~he ~pp.ro- in Its life, and t~e ~eal democracy of it depends priate Co-operatlVe or the appropnate ~ol- n~) less on beginning with, ~nd building lip lective " body, and also of direct r~latlOns from, the sn~allest natural unit of consumers' beLween all the Guilds concer~ed WIth the common action and feeling, The internal " Co-operative" group of ser,vIces and the s~rudu~'e of the consumers' organisations, Co-operative body, all the GUllds concer~cd Collective, as well as Co-operative, should fol- with the "Collective" services and the, (:01- low es:~en~Iallyt~e same principles as the Guild lcctive body and the whole body of (.•uilds organisation which has been already described and both ~o~sumers' bodies. Moreover, all It should be?in with the self-gm;ermllcnt of these contacts could take place at any stage, the smr:ll unit, and create its larger regional local, regional, or national. '~e, have thus a and national organisation by the bringing to- second set of inter-relations, this ~mle between ~;the~' of the ,representatives of these units, producers and consumers,' followmg upon the I he Co-operative Movement already does this inter-Guild relations which we have already to a eO,nsldera?~e,extent; and the creation of described, . Collective Uhh~Jes Councils to assume the But, I can hear my reader askm~, w~lat econorme functions of the local authorities would be the powers of the consumers ~odles, should not stop short with the town. hllt. if the Guilds were firmly entrenched m, th~ should be carried further by the fOrT;;~ti~~~ control of the various industries ,and servIces,r 0.0 the sam~ basis, of regional Collective Utili~ Could not the producers, rclymg on their ties C?uncIls ~rawn from the local Councils economic power, merely ignore t~e consumers' an~ of a Na~lOnal Council drawn from the representations, and follow their ()W~ sweet reg,lState Socialism would therefore be industrial democracy. and by Industrial Unionists. who said that. since in a democratic Society an obviously desirable complement to the all consumers would he producers, producers" control would amply represent the consumer, These two urgumcnts always had a most independent producers' organisations whose convenient way of cancelling out, and their advoc-at.es for the most part retired burt some time ago. It is, I think. dear that a person requires continued existence, in certain special cases, as many forms of representation as he has distinct organlsable interests we have agreed to be a valuable source of craft or points of view. initiative and variety in production. The importance, from a practical point of view, of the conclusions reached in this chapter is sufficiently evident. It means, first, that, so far from there being any antagonism be- tween the Co-operative Movement and Guild Socialism, the rapid extension of Co-operation to supply, as nearly as possible, the personal and domestic needs of the whole population is a development of democratic organisation which Guildsmen ought to make every effort to advance. It means; secondly; that the reform and re-organisation of the Local Government of this country ought to be taken immediately and vigorously in hand, with a view to the separation of its civic and economic functions, and that, both as a means to this end and in order to make full use of it when it has been reorganised, Labour ought to follow up its recent advance in local elec- tions by making a determined effort to secure ~ I i THE CIVIC SERVICES 97 Lion and health, in which there is, even under their present depressing conditions, consider- able scope for idealistic motives and devoted endeavour. It is true that the conditions under which such professions as those of teaching and medicine are now carried on have resulted, to a considerable extent, in their assimilation to CHAPTER VI the economic services, and their infection by the spirit of greed, grab and acquisitive TBI<; CIVIC SERVICES struggle by which these are at present dom- inated. Rut it is recognised even now that \VI<: have been dealing, so far, entirely with this spirit is foreign to the real nature of the Guild Socialism as a scheme of industrial and civic services, and ineffectual protests are raised economic organisation, and have not, except from time to time against their tendency to incidentally, touched upon its application to acquire a capitalistic character. These pro- services of a non-economic character. But it tests are, of course, directed chiefly against must be obvious that the arguments which underpaid teachers and overworked general have been advanced in favour -of self-govern- practitioners who are compelled to assume an ment in industry apply at least equally to those acquisitive attitude in the desperate attempt services whose purpose is, not the satisfaction to make both ends meet. They have, never- of economic wants, but Lhe fulfilment of theless, a real basis in the recognition of the spiritual, mental, and other non-economic essentially non-economic character of the ser- needs and desires. The necessity of evoking, vices in question. They are, however, and in these essentially civic services, the spirit of must continue to be ineffectual as long as the free communal devotion is at least as great, industrial conditions, to which their own are and the opportunity is, by reason of their inevitably assimilated, remain under the dom- character , greater and more easily seized than ination of capitalism and capitalist morality. in the ease of most economic activities. If Their rescue from their present degradation there is anywhere a real chance for free or- will only proceed side by side with the rescue ganisation conceived in the spirit of public ~ of the economic system from the even worse service, it is surely in such spheres as educa- degradation into which it has fallen. 96 J 7 I I 99 98 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES I propose, in this chapter, to concentrate raising of the school age, will fundamentally attention mainly upon one of these services, alter the character of the system. which seems to me, by reason of its social This servility of present educational arrange- purpose, to be the most important of all. ments is traced by its critics to various causes. Education, as advocates of revolution are Some dwell, quite rightly, OIl the inordinate mostly tired of being reminded, to a great size of the classes which the unfortunate extent conditions the possibility of all change teacher is called upon to teach, and point out, for the better. Democracy, we are constantly with perfect truth, that it is impossible to told, is only possible for an educated people, communicate education to a mob. But the and, even if this is only true on the broadest size of classes, while it is a serious aggravation interpretation of what education means, it is of the servility of the system, is not the root most certainlv the case that the character of cause of its servility. Other critics are content to say that the system is servile because it is. the edu('atio~al system goes far towards de- I termining the mental outlook and capacity for I capitalist, and iL is to the interest of capitalists freedom of the citizens. An education that I to train contented wage-slaves. This is cer- is rightly conceived in such a way as to elicit, tainly t1'11e; but it only drives us back to the in child and adult alike, the fullest possible further problem of the means by which capi- capacity for initiative and self-expression, will talism succeeds in imparting this servile char- make easy for the people feats of self-govern- acter to what should be a great agent of ment and communal expression which would spiritual enfranchisement. The fundamental be quite beyond the reach of a people educated answer, I think, is to be found in the present under a routine system making for servility status and equipment of the teacher, who is, and unquestioning obedience that reasons not under existing conditions, as much a wage- why. slave as any hireling of the industrial system, It will not, I think, be disputed that our and worse exploited than most. The teacher public educational system, under which the is afforded only a quite inadequate and often great majority of the nation are brought up, inferior training, sometimes in a University, is to a great extent a servile system. It is but more often in an institution that is not not, perhaps, quite so servile as it has been, quite as good as a University. He or she, with and recent reforms will make a further slight this shoddy equipment, is then pitchforked improvement. But no mere addition to the into a school, and told to teach, under the quantity of education provided, and no mere supervision of a horde of inspectors, according 100 GUILD SOCIA LISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 101 to Board of Education instructions, under the education of its present capitalistic and control of an Education Authority whose economic taint. members usually know nothing about educa- We need, then, in so far as our educational tion, and in an atmosphere of jealousy created system is to be regarded as a single unit, an directly bv the dire economic distress of the Education Guild, in which the teachers will teacher, and the scarcity of promotions carry- possess a self-governing status fully equivalent ing a reasonable salary or reasonable oppor- to that of the economic workers in one of the tunities. It is no wonder at all that, under Guilds which we have already described. And, these conditions, very many teachers can be in the same way, we need a Guild of Health accused of being "narrow-minded" and not and a Guild "for every civic service that too efficient. Thev would be miracles if they ministers to an essential non-economic need were otherwise, and, in the circumstances, th"e of the people. work which many of them do is little short of When I say that we need an Education miraculous. BuL there is a limit to miracles; Guild. or a Health Guild, I want the reader and the majority of teachers are human beings, to be~r in mind what I have said already about and many have come to be teachers, not be- the essentiallv decentralised character of the cause they have a vocation for teaching, but Guild system", and the need for basing self- because, in the present scramble, even the government on the smallest natural units of worst-paid professions have some economic I control. There is no sphere in which the hand attractions superior to those of starvation or of centralised large-scale organisation is likely mercenary marriage. to be so deadening, just as there is none in The only way of changing the character of which the hand of bureaucracy is so deadening I to-day, as that of the civic and essentially the educational system is by changing the status of the teacher; for the teachers alone spiritual services with which we are now deal- can purify education, and they can do so only ing. There is nowhere such need for variety, if the conditions enable them to make a be- for diverse initiative and multiform experi- ginning. \Ve shall set our feet on the right ment, for freedom to develop individual ideas road in respect of education only when we and peculiar notions, as in this sphere on which make teaching a fully self-governing profes- so much of human happiness depends. There- sion; and we shall get a good and liberating fore, if we build up our educational and our educational system only when we have helped health services into great national systems, the teachers to use their freedom to purge and express their unity in great National THE CIVIC SERVICES 103 102 GUILD SOCIALISM later, the pupils secured a measure of self- Guilds including all their different forms and government as well as the teachers. stages, we must preserve within these large Our Edueation Guild, then, I~u~t he even organisations the seat of power and the initia- more deeentraliscd than the majority of the tion of policy in the small units, so that each productive Guilds, an,d must, be much more school may be as free as possible to strike out a consultative federatlOn of mte.rrelated, free new lines for itself, and so that the initiative educational institutions than a smg~e, umtar,y of individual medical men, or groups of fel- organisation. U~der these ,cOI~dItJ.ons,,It low-workers, may not be hampered by too . t of course mdude the institutions 1e- IHUS , ..", ' f much central control. sponsible for education at ~llltS stages- rom In the case of education, which we are using primary school to, Universlt~, as we sa~ to- throughout the chapter to illustrate the general 1 For our inSIstence on freedom does not day.· 1 ti I 1 I principle, this involves the fullest admission m~an isolation, either of t 1C par H;U ar sc lOO of the right, which we have already recognised or college or of a particular stage JIl !,he edu- in the case of industry, of individuals or cational process, The extcnt to wh]~~ ,cdu- groups, on conforming' with the most ele- cation is isolated, not only by class dJV1SlO'llS, mentary regulations, to make experiments but also by stages, to-day is one of Tthe wo~st outside as well as inside the regular and recog- features of the present system. We re<;Ulre nised educational system. vVe may hope, to look at the educational problem as a single indeed, as we hoped in the case of industry, whole without allowing ourselves to be led that the spirit of freedom will be so fully de- into the error of centralising it because we veloped in the National Guild that the great reeognise its unity. , ;' _...... , , r.- r ~...,lrl 'l·T'l(~ludinQ'. majority of new experiments will be able to A National ~<1ueat1on \.."UllU" ., • = take place within it; but the idea of an edu- many diverse types of tea('he~s WItl:.varYI~~ cational monopoly, however loose, is abhor- techniques, methods and functI?ns" WIllcl~llIl}. rent, and there will always be experiments for require, in its internal orgamsatlOn,. high I} which a national system, however elastic, will diversified democratic forms. There WIllhave fail to find a place. Most of these may be to be provision for self-governm~nt not only, " quackeries" ; but it is better to admit many in the school, where it is most Important of quackeries than to boycott one real educational . -ould take place outside any organised 1 Of, course, much. cdtuhca\l~~e"~~d in voluntary associations of child- discovery, and the danger of quackeries would eduC'atlOnal Sl'stem-m ' e 1 " be greatly reduced if, in the ways suggested ren fOT all manner of purpose.~ 104 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 105 all, and in the larger areas of educational relation of the Guild, in respect of education administration, but also in the various pro- generally, to the body of citizens, and more fessional and "craft" groups comprehended particularly to those citizens of to-day and to- m the teaching profession. And, in addition morrow who come to its institutions as pupils to the diverse provision for group expression or students? And what will be its relation, ma?e in the Guild itself, locally as well as especially in connection with technical edu- nationally, there will be required the fullest cal.ion, to the various economic Guilds and freedom of voluntary professional association professional associations? . and of recognition for such forms of associa- These two problems are III some degree tion.. A simple instanc'e of what I mean is analogous to, but in no respect the same as, ~urilished by thc problem of qualifying tests certain problems which we have discussed al- fo!' teachers themselves. It would be a great readv in relation to the economic C:;'uilds. mistake for ~he.National Guild to attempt to The;e is resemblance, but certainly not iden- concentrate in Its own hands the whole func- tity, between our first problem and the prob- tion of applying such tests to entrants to the lem of the economic Guilds and the consumer, profession or aspirants to its higher qualifica- and there is a resemblance, perhaps less dose t~ons. It woul? .be far better, wherever pos- but still real, between the second and that of SIble, for the build to delegate or entrust to intermediate" consumption" and inter-Guild various professional and similar bodies the task relations. Rut there is, in the case of edu- of deciding, within limits, on the qualifications cation and also, to only a slightly less extent, of candidates. This, as we have seen already, in that of health, the vital difference that the would be the proper method for the economic services in question are not economic services, Guilds to adopt in many cases in relation to and that the character of the service provided th: in~ustrial professions, and it clearly ap- raises spiritual and moral problems of immense plies WIth at least equal force in the case both social consequence. When we propose in- of the educational and of the medical services. ternally self-governing Guilds for education R~fore \:e attempt to forecast in greater and health, we are clearly not suggesting that detail the mternal organisation of the Edu- all questions of education and health should be cation Guild, there -are two fundamental left to be determined wholly by the teachers problems, both conneeted with its relation to or the doctors. Roth education and health arc other parts of the communal structure that matters in which every citizen is intimately require to be discussed, What will be the concerned, and upon which he must be assured lOG GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 107 of the fullest opportunity of bringing his nised for at least two distinct forms of or- opiruon and influence to bear. The other ganisation thc Co-operative and the Collcc- Guilds and the professional associations, again, live, to r~prescnt the different divisions ?f arc clearlv concerned most vitallv in the ques- consumption, is far more than reproduced III tions of 'technical education, a';:'d here their the case of the civic services, which fall into voice, as well as that of the teacher and of groups far more clearly distinct in their ma~n the ordinary citizen, must be able to make characteristics than anv two or more eeOnOll11C itself effectively heard. groups can be. If we'take :mly the t:vo gr~at In our discl;ssion of Local Covemment in services which we have so far been discussing its economic aspects, we have already made it --education and public health-it is clear that, dear that, if local authorities arc to be fitted although these overlap and interpcnetrate. at for the necessary function of representing the many points, both witl~ each, other and WIth "collective" consumer, there must be separate various forms of econonnc service, they present bodies, constituted and elected for this purpose in each ease a distinct and separate body of alone and nut attempting to combine it with problems which demands distinct treatment non-economic purposes. Rut, if this is essen- and calls for quite distinct qualifications and tial from the economic point of view, how interests on the part of those who are to repre- much more obviously necessary is it from the sent the public point of view in relation t:o standpoint of the civic services which we are it. Education and health cannot, then, If now discussing; for clearly the liberation we are to adhere to our functional principle, of these services from their subjection to be assigned to the same bodies; and we must economics can hardly be even attempted as I nronounce in favour of a return to the ad hoc long as they remain u~der the control of bodies inethod of administration which Collectivist which almost inevitably put first in their reformers, failing to recognise the difference thoughts the economic point of view. We between economic and civic services, have been require, then, side by side with the Collective so busv destroying in recent times. Utilities Councils described in the last chapter, 'Yeo need, thcn, in every locality, side by other Councils which will express the needs j side with the Collective Utilities Council, a and desires of the people in relation to the Council to deal , from the point of view of the civic services. Nor would the case be met by whole body of citizens, with educational ques- a simple division into two of the local authori- tions, and another to deal with health ques- ties; for the necessity which we have recog- tions. This, however, does not point the way 108 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 109 to an indefinite multiplication of distinct ad Medical Guild, but also to the Guilds or- hoc .Local Authorities; for the proper con- ganising the sanitary services, and would have ception of the functions of education and in its sphere, as well as hospitals, parks and health is far wider than that which dominates open spaces and other amenities of physical public policy to-day. This distinction is so life. It would also have a close and constant, important that, at any rate in the case of though not an exclusive, relation to t?e ~uild- edl~ca.tion,.i~ is probably best to mark it by ing Guild, and would have a large voice Ill.the a distinguishing word. Let us say, then, that determination of town-planning and region- for education in the widest sense, including planning policy. . IlIany kindred spiritual services, we need As in the case of the Co-operative and Cultuml Councils elected by all the citizens Collective Councils, therefore, there would be, to express the civic point of view. for the Health and Cultural Councils, a rela- These Cultural Councils would enter into tion not to a single Guild, but to a group of a dose and constant relation, not only to the cognate Guilds which would be themselves in I~d~teatio:l Guild, but to other Guilds pro- close and constant interaction. It would also viding kmdred services. For example, the dearly be necessary for the Health and (:ul- whole of the dramatic and musical professions tural Councils and for the corrcspondmg and ~ll concer?ed in the services which they Guilds to enter into close connections for provide, securing under a democratic social dealinz jointly with problems common to system the communal recognition extended to both, ~uch as the health of school children or them by the people, but denied by the au- the education of the mentally defective, so far thorities, to-day, would, through th~ir Guilds, as they continued after the abolition of be directly related to the Cultural Council economic destitution. They would also have which would exist to deal with their services to enter into relations, less close but still im- fully as much as with education in the nar- portant, with the Collective and C.o~operative rower sense of teaching. Art Galleries Councils in respect of such questions as the Museums, Libraries and similar institutions: milk supply, town-planning, edueational facili- placed directly under the care of the Edu- ties in relation to industry, and many others. cation Guild or of professional associations Of this interrelation of the various forms of would fall within the sphere of action of th~ communal organisation we shall have more to Cultural Council. Again, the Health Council say in the next chapter. would be in direct relation not onlv to the 'But, if this would be the structure of civic 110 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 111 representation in relation to' these vital ser- properly gives those who do want something vices, what would be the functions of the and do take an interest the best opportunity representative Councils which we have de- of making their voice heard. Moreover, under scribed? As in the case of the economic conditions of democratic equality of status, it relationships described in the last chapter, it is difficult to believe that the Cultural Coun- would be essentially, not an antagonistic, but cil, with its opportunities for the expression a eo-operative and complementary relation- of spiritual and artistic desires, would .nut pro- ship. The Councils would exist to make ar- vide the most popular of all openmgs fur ticulate the civic point of view, the vital cummunal service." spiritual and physical demands of the people, In the sphere of education, however, a fur- and to' co-operate with the various Guilds ther problem of civil' expression now im- which would have entrusted to them the task mediately confronts us. Fur, if the right of of supplying these demands. There are all adult citizens to' vote fur functional bodies spiritual and physical as well as economic provides a sufficient expression fur the civic demands, and in these spheres also articulate point of view in relation to health and some demand must meet and eo-operate with Of> forms of cultural activity, what of that great ganised supply. part of education which is concerned with The Councils, then, would express the de- non-adults? Have not the child and the youth mand of the people, locally even more than the right to make their voices heard in the nationally, in accordance with the deeentralisa- moulding of the educational system, if nut as tion of the system, in relation to cultural and a whole, at any rate where it touches them physical needs. The citizen is interested in directly, in the school itself. I have no hesi- the type of education, drama, medical and tation in recognising this right, and in saying sanitary services, parks and public institutions that it must be provided for, nut by a fantastic to be provided, and it is the business of those attempt to create large-scale representative whose vocation lies in these services to pro- machinery fur non-adults, and still less by vide, in accordance with their knowledge and mixing up adults and nun-adults all the Cul- initiative, what the people wants. It is some- tural Councils, but by providing, in every times argued that, especially in the sphere of school, the fullest facilities for self-guvernment education, the majority of the people wants 2 Aguin, we must reserve the special question of the relative potoer nothing at all; but functional representation, of these Councils and of Lhe Guilds for eonstderatfon in the next chapter, which deals with the whole question of communal organisation unde-r with the election of ad hoc authorities, very Guild Socialism 112 GUILD SOCIAI,ISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 113 of the pupils as well as of the teachers. It owing to economic causes, constant friction has already been shown that the greatest ex- between advocates of the extension of tech- perimental advances in this direction have been nical education and those who seek to uphold made in those schools in which the individual a "eultural" or "humanistic" ideal. This teachers themselves have enjoyed the fullest friction is inevitable under capitalist condi- freedom and self-government, and I have no tions; but the reason for it would disappear doubt that a general extension of freedom to under economic democracy. ~f any persons the teachers would lead soon to a widespread are led to-day, as a rule rightly, to oppose developments of such experiments. 3 This self- extensions of technical training which are government of the pupil would no doubt be- good in themselves because, first, technical gin mainly in an increased control by boys and training is far too narrowly conceived as It girls over their own affairs, including the routine business, and, secondly, technical in- greatest freedom of voluntary association in struction is put forward as a substitute for the school and substantial control over dis- other forms of education. Under democratic cipline; but it would rapidly extend to include, conditions, it would be recognised that tech- where necessary, actual criticism of the curri- nic-al instruction, rightly understood, can be culuru and the teacher, and co-operative sug- made a cultural influence equally with book gestion of forms of study and methods of work. learning, and that the two are intimatelv in- It is hardly possible to lay down rules or pre- terwoven and complementary. There ,"~ould cepts for this development, which will take thus be not antagonism, but eo-operation; many different forms according to the indi- but clearly special methods would be required viduality of the teacher and the spirit of the for the control and organisation of technical class ; but, until a large measure of students' education, and the various Guiids, and also self-government is developed, democracy in the professional associations, would require to the school will not be realised and the power be brought very closely into contact with it. of education as a liberating influence will not 'V-orkshop or practical training and institu- have been properly developed. tional training would be recognised as com- This brings us to the second big problem- plementary, and Guilds and professional as- that of technical education. There is to-day, sociations would playa large part in the actual control and administration of both. There is 3 See An Experiment in Educational Self~Uot,ernment, by J. B. Simp- no reason in this case for uniformity of system, son,\yho is himself now concerned in a new school that is doing promising work OIl these lines. and probably many different systems would 8 114 GUILD SOCIALISM THE CIVIC SERVICES 115 prevail side by side, the common principle in Heaven forbid that we should be tidily 01'- all being the close joint action of the Edu- ganised down to the last man and the last cation Guild with the other bodies concerned. function! Manv functions and some men are I am not suggesting, then, that technical mercifullv unorjzunisable altogether, and many education should fall outside the scope of the more can only- be organised in small units Education Guild; for that would hopelessly constantly forming and dissolving with spon- divide two forms of education which it is taneous bursts of co-operation and dissociation, socially necessary to bind closely together. But the forms of such co-operation, and the Special provision should be made within the readiness with which such men and functions Guild for the control of the teehnieal side of find the way to harmonious social organisation, education, and for the representation of in- depend essentially on the texture and spirit of dustrial and professional interests in dealing the Societv which surrounds them. In a com- with it. Thus, in Universities possessing a munity permeated, as the Guild community collegiate system, there might be included would be, by the associative impulse, scientific Colleges directly controlled, in large measure, and professional association of all types would by other Guilds or professional associations, flourish exceedingly and secure readily the but entering into the general work of the fullest social recognition, and, even the artists, University, .and submitting to its general least organisable of men, would respond to the regulation. associative impulses around them, and readily \Ve have, then, Guilds for Education, form co-operative groups, less stable, no Drama, Medicine, Sanitary (or Public Health) doubt, hut more vital by reason of their very Services, and other civic servir-es. Rut what, instability. The professional associations of it will be asked, becomes of the" independent I all types' would, as we have seen again and professions," scientific, statistical, artistie? again already, find most important functions \Vhat is to be the organisation and social to perform in the Guild community, and I status of the professional man for whom we think it is safe to say that nowhere would art have not indicated a place, and of the artist? and science Hamish 'better, more widely, and I propose to say little on this point, beyond more on a really popular basis, than in the indicating that Guild Socialism is not intended diversely organised functional Society which to provide an answer to every question, or to I have described. For democracy in industry provide a direct means of organising everybody and in every sphere of social life has for its in everyone of his functional capacities. supreme justification its power to call out in , IHi GUILD SOCIALISM the mass of men the creative, scientific and artistic impulses which capitalism suppresses or perverts, and to enable the now stifled civic spirit to work wonders in the regeneration of human taste and appreciation of the good things of life. CHAPTER VII THE STlWCTUltE OF TIlE COMMUNE WITH two important exceptions, we have now displayed in turn the principal forms of the functional organisation of Society, in so far as they enter into its economic or civic expres- sion. The first exception, which we have made advisedly throughout this book, is the organisation of religion. It is significant that the recent development of theory concerning the relations of Church and State and the position of Churches in the modern COIl1- Inunity is running very largely on lines parallel to those of Guild development in the spheres of industry and civic service.' The essence, however, of the spiritual freedom of Churches, and indeed of all associations based on belief or opinion, lies in independence of the material 1 Sec especially the writings of the late J. N. Ffggis, and above all his Chwrches fn the Mode-rn SLate. See also Richard Roberts, The ChUTe h in the C()lll1nomi-lealth. There is also much that is closely relevant in the Report of the Archbishops' Committee on Church and State. and in the recent Church Enabling Act. 117 ~~----..•..•.------us GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE U9 and economic, and even of the civic, structure ganisation of the Civic Guilds; and lastly, the of Society, and in the working out of their civic, or citizen organisation of the Cultural own problems in terms of spiritual, and not of and Health Councils. In addition, we have economic or civic, power, and certainly with- already discussed, in a number of different out invoking the material coercions of Society. aspects, the probable interrelation and inter- I have dealt more fully with this question else- action of the various groups, both internally where :2 but it falls outside the scope of this and one with another, both nationally and book. locallv. But what we have not vet done is The second exception lies in the sphere of to gi~e any idea of the working of all the economics. Although the Guild organisation groups as parts of a single system, that is to of agriculture, even if it can be devised, will say, of the communal, as distinct from the dearly present many features differing from functional, organisation and working of Guild those of the Guild organisation of industry, Society. nothing' has hitherto been said about it here. We have to see, not merely how producer It is dealt with in a later chapter; but in this and consumer would meet and co-operate, or chapter I shall have to a small extent to how civic servant and citizen are to meet and introduce by name the Agricultural Guild, co-operate, but also how the communal spirit without at all explaining what it is. This of the whole Society can find expression, in arrangcment seemed, in the circumstances, so far as such expression can be found at all the most convenient, since the discussion of in any form of social organisation. aJ;rrieul~ural organisation involved the prior This leads us directly to a Further considera- discussion of some of the questions with which tion of the position' of "the State"; for this chapter will deal. orthodox social theorists usually claim for 'Ve have so far passed in review four dis- "the State" the supreme task ~f expressing tinct forms of organisation, each of which has the spirit of the community, and the positive subdivisions of its own. First, we reviewed power of co-ordinating and directing the ac- the producers' organisation of the economic tivities of all the various parts of the social Guilds; then, the consumers' organisation of structure. 'Ve have so far attacked the notion the Co-operative Movement and the Collective of universal State Sovereignty from two dis- Utility Councils; then the civic service 01'- tinct points of view, and have, I think, made large breaches in the theory, without as yet 2 Sec my Social Theory, chapter XI. destroying it altogether. First, we criticised 'I ~------....•.------~'---~'------:.... 120 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 121 the structure of the State from the point of than that of co-ordinating the activities of the view of functional democracy, showing that various functional bodies in Society. Now, it its undifferentiated representative theory un- is, of course, perfectly dear that the functional fitted it to be the expression of a democratic democracy which we have been expounding spirit which ought to find utterance in every requires and must have a clearly recognised separate aspect of social activity. By this co-ordinating agency, and there would be no criticism we destrovcd the idea of State "omni- objection to calling this agency" the State," competence. " Secondly, in dealing with Col- if the name did not immediately suggest two lectivist theories in the economic sphere, we entirely misleading ideas. The first is that destroyed the idea that the State represents this new body will be historically continuous the consumer, and so excluded it from func- with the present political machinery of So- tional participation in the control of industry ciety: the second is that it will, to a great or service, Inferentially, this criticism applied extent, reproduce its structure, especially in also to the civic services in relation to which being based on direct, non-functional election. we showed that representation must equally The co-ordinating body which is required have a functional basis. We have thus, be- cannot be, in any real sense, historically con- sides destroying the notion of State "omni- tinuous with the present State, and it must competence," definitely excluded it from a not reproduce in any important respect the place in the control of economic and civic structure of the present State. That it will services alike. We have not, however, as yet not inherit most of its functions we have seen overthrown the notion of State Sovereignty already. in a form in which it has been re-stated with The new co-ordinating body will not be the definite purpose of meeting these objec- continuous with the present political ma- tions. a chinery of Society for two good and sufficient This revised theory rejects State omnicom- reasons. The first, clearly laid down in modern petence and agrees, at least in general terms, Marxist teaching, and most dearly of all by to the exclusion of the State from the normal Lenin," is that the present political machine working of all social functions; but it retains is definitely an organ of class domination, not in the background a State" whose function is merely because it has been perverted by the Sovereignty," that is, which has no other task power of capitalists, but because it is based on 3 For instance, in a series of articles in the New .40e a few yearj 4. See his book, The State and Revolutio"u. ago. ,I I 122 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 123 coercion, and is primarily an instrument of ordinates, in which ease the whole of so.cial coercion. Its essential idea is that of an ex- organisation comes again under the. d?mma~ ternally imposed "order," and its transfor- tion of the State, and the whole principle of mation into a form expressive of self-govern- functional democracy is destroyed; or it ex- ment and freedom is impossible. Agreement eludes them, and in this case it clearly cannot with Lenin on this point does not involve eo-ordinate. In other words, the State agreement with him on the necessity of re- " representative" either controls the e~ono- placing the capitalist State by a temporary mic and civic spheres, or he does not: If he "proletarian State," equally based on coercion does, the representatives in these spheres lose --a point which is discussed later in connection their self-government; if he does not, he can- with the problem of transition-but it does not regulate their mutual re.lationship~. . involve agreement that, in a truly Socialist This second argument against the historical Society, there will be no room for any body continuity of the new co-ordinating' body with continuous with the present political rna- the present political machine also serves to chine, demonstrate that it will not reproduce the In the second place, this machine, where it latter's essential structure. It could do this has adapted itself to so-called "political de- only if it were based on the false theory of mocracy," is based essentially on the false undifferentiated representation. idea of representative government which as- \Ve can, then, safely assume that not o~ly sumes that one man can represent another, will the present political machine lose. Its not ad hoc, in relation to a particular purpose economic and civic functions to new bodies, or group of purposes, but absolutely. This but that the task of co-ordinating these func- false notion of representation we have already tions will also pass out of its hands. It will rejected in favour of the functional idea. thus, at the least, "wither away" to ~ v~ry But it may be argued that the defence of considerable extent, and I have no hesitation the State, in its new form, meets this argu- in savinz that in my belief, it will disappear ment; for the new "function of the State" altog·cth~r, eitller aft~era frontal attack, or by is simply co-ordination, and nothing else. atrophy following upon dispossession of its This contention, however, will not hold water; vital powers. Conceivably, some fragments for the eo-ordination of functions is not, and of it may linger as formal instruments of the cannot be, itself a function. Either co- new Society, as the Privy Council and other ordination includes the functions which it co- obsolete survivals, including the Crown, linger I ~ li44# ------'------_ .. __ . GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE C()M~IUKE 125 to-day; but in any case it will be of no real €'eonomie services united in a Guild Council importance. of delegates or representatives drawn from We have, then, to seek a new form of co- these Guilds; (b) a Co-operative Council ; (e) ordinating body which will not be inconsistent a Collective Utilities Council; (d) a number with the functional democracy on which our of Guilds organising and managing various whole system is based. This can be nothing civic services-Civic Guilds; (e) a Cultural other than a bringing together of the various Council; and (f) a Health Council. functional bodies whose separate working we All these, not necessarily in the same pro- have already described. Co-ordination is in- portions, have dearly a right to be rcpresented evitably coercive unless it is self-co-ordination, / on the eommunalhodv, which I shall call and it must therefore be accomplished by the hereafter simply the (:"ommune. I have !10 common action of the various bodies which desire to lay down in detail any definite require co-ordination. numerical basis of representation; but the This problem of eo-ordination has two number of representatives from the Industrial separate aspects. It is first a problem of Guilds, who might be chosen either by each co-ordinating the functional bodies of the Guild or through the Guild Council, would various types into a sing-le communal system, probably be approximately equal to ~he nU~l~- and it is secondly a problem of co-ordinating bel' from the Co-operative and Collective Utili- bodies operating over a smaller with bodies ties Councils taken together, and the number operating over a larger area. Both these from the Civic Guilds to the number from the problems have to be solved in the structure of Cultural and Health Councils together. The the co-ordinating, or as I shall henceforward proportion assigned to the _e_conomi~~nd the call it, the communal, organisation of Guild non-economic groups would certainly vary Socialist Societv. from case to ease. In order, for"the first discussion, to reduce The bodies so far mentioned, however, do the problem to as simple elements as possible, not necessarily complete the composition of let us take it in the form in which it presents the Commune. In any instance, there might itself in a single town-s-say Norwich. In be special organisations to which it would be Norwich there will be at least the following desirable, on account of their importance in bodies possessing important social functions : the town, to give representation. Again, (a) A number of Industrial Guilds organis- what is far more important, the town as a ing and managing various industries and whole cannot be treated as an undifferentiated ____-----i- 126 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 127 unit. In electing their representatives to serve signed to it certain administrative functions on the four Councils mentioned above; the which are best carried out over a very small citizens, if the town were of any size, would area, and would execute these either in full almost eertainlv vote bv 'Yards and each ,;yard Meeting, or by the appointment of ad member on a Council ~ould sit there as a hoc and usually temporary committees or 'Yard representative in relation to his par- officers. Where, in a large centre, the func- ticular function. It is of the first importance, tions of the 'Yards expanded, standing VVard if this representation is to be a reality, that Committees might be developed, and it might the "rard should exist, not merely as a polling be desirable that these Ward Committees district for various elections, but also as an should have direct. representation, in respect active centre for the expression of local of their functions, on the Town Commune," opinion, which requires, for its successful In such eases, these representatives would form eliciting, to be made articulate within the a third group distinct both from the Guild and smallest natural areas of common feeling. from the Council representatives. Indeed, in the sphere both of consumers' and Having laid down the essential structure of of civic organisation, the 'Yard in the town the Norwich Commune, let us try to see more and the village in the country form the natural explicitly what work it would have to do. equivalents for the workshop in the sphere of What we say under this head will apply, with industry or the school in the sphere of edu- small changes, to the other types of Comrnune cation. hereafter d.escribed. Clearly, it would be, in The 'Yards, then, in our case of Norwich, the main, not an administrative but a eo- must have a real existence, and the Ward ordinating body. The various services would representatives must report back regularly to, be managed by their (;uilds and their policy and receive instructions and advice from, Ward would be determined by the eo-operative Meetings of all the dwellers in the 'Yard who working of the Guilds and the appropriate choose to attend, The 'Yard Meeting would citizen Councils. Five essential tasks would also exercise, within the limits to be discussed remain for the Commune itself. First, it hereafter, the right of recalling from any would have to agree upon the allocation of the Council the\Y ard representative. It would also, especially in the larger towns, have as- 6 [ aS3UInc that the election of the various Council rcnrcscntntlvc« would he bv ballet of the wards, but that these ward Committee representatives would he chosen either by the Ward Committee, or, J Lc.. Councils as distinct from Guilds. which would have their own bct.ter, from the Ward Committee by the Ward Meeting Uniformity, varying electoral methods. however, is not necessary. ",.J...... :: i 128 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 129 local resources among the various services of law. R The Commune could decide to hand calling for expenditure-s-that is, it would have over, and would, wherever possible, he wise essential financial functions, and would be, to hand over actual administrative functions indeed, the financial pivot of the whole Guild falling within its sphere to the Wards, in order system in the area. Secondly, it would be to preserve the most direct form of popular the court of appeal in all cases of difference control. Thus, T should like to see the Wards between functional bodies of different types. appoint and control the police-a reversion to Thus, if the Co-operative Society could not f the days of the town or village constable. agree on some point of policy with the Guilds Bef~re we attempt to examine these func- operating in the sphere of "domestic" pro- tions in greater detail, let LIS complete our duction and distribution, the Commune would \ survev of the communal structure by applying have to hear the case and give its judgment. I to other areas the principles which we have Thirdly, it would determine the lines of de- just illustrated in the case of the town. First, marcation between the various functional let us see in very general terms what would be bodies, where any question concerning them 7 the corresponding forms of organisation in the arose. Fourthly, it would itself take the countrvside, Corresponding to the Ward, but initiative in any matter concerning the town needing larger powers of administration in as a whole and not in any functional capacity, accordance with its more self-contained char- such as a proposed extension of town boun- acter is the Village, which would have its daries or a proposal to build a new town hall. Villa~e Meeting and, in most cases, its Vil- The original suggestion, in such cases, would lage Committee. No elaborate representative probably come from one of the functional forms would be required, as to a great extent bodies or from a Ward ; but they would be all the citizens ('{~Jllldmanage their affairs matters for the Town Commune itself to de- directly. cide. Fifthly, so far as coercive machinery, In ~ddition to serving as the smallest ad- such as a police force, remained, it should be ministrative unit in the -countrvside, the vil- controlled, not by any single functional body, lage would he the electoral .unit for the but by all jointly-that is by the Commune. organisation of the next stage of rural govern- This, as we shall see, applies also in the realm ment. This I call the "Township," in 7 I do not mean, of course, that. if two Industrial Guilds fell out. the order to emphasise its correspondence to the Commune would settle the matter. It would g-o to the Guild Council, But if the Guill] Council failed to settle it. even sut-h a difference might go to the Commune. R See pace 49ft 9 1 ,__------:..-..-."' -111----- 'f 130 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 131 " Town" stage of urban organisation. It is "Then we proceed to consider larger areas a group of villages or small· towns, probably of administration, new problems at once arise. varying greatly in size from place to place, hut One cardinal defect of our present system of always larger than the present Parish and local government is that, recognising no area smaller than most of the existing Administra- larger than the administrative county and tive Counties. It would not include the smaller than the nul.ion, it is incapable of larger Towns falling within its area," and securing effective administration of services, would thus be mainly rural and agricultural. such as electricity and road transport, which Here again, there would be a Commune-v-this require common action over a considerable time a Township Commune, and the basis of area, or of co-ordinating town and countryside representation would be largely the same as into a single administrative system. These in the Town. A part from the fact that the needs can be met only by the method of Village would replace the Ward, the various regional organisation, and, without develop- groups=-Tndustrial Guilds, Civic Guilds, Co- ing the full case for regionalism here, I pro- operative Society, Collective Utilities Council, pose to aSSUInethat Guild Society will adopt, Cultural Council, Health Council-would in response to an evident need, a regional basis usually recur, though their relative importance of organisation. 10 I must, however, in order might be different, and would be represented that the exposition here given may be intel- on the Township Commune. Hut side by side ligible, state very briefly what I understand with them would be another organisation of by a " Region." the greatest rural importance-vthe Agricul- I believe that England, for example, falls tural Guild. Of this body, which is described naturally into a number of areas which are at later in this book, I need say no more now once centres of economic life, of common than that it would probably combine, for the social outlook, and of common administrative agricultural population, the functions of a problems. These Regions are not equal in Guild as a producers' organisation with those size, in population, or in wealth, but none, of an agricultural Co-operative Society, It with the possible exception of the London would be directly and strongly represented on area-Cobbett's ""V en "-is too large for the Township Commune. reasonable balance 0[' too small for effective 9 I assume tbat most" Urban Dist rict s H of to-day would he rc('ogni"leil 10 The case for reg-ionalism is briefly stated in my Social Ttveorv, ubapf.cr X, and I am developing it fully in relation to the Guild idea. in ns Towns. Smaller semi-urban centres would count fig vlllnecs ar.d i, would he included in the " orwich Health Council, and"- ..L .••••.•.•••• ;~L •...•• ,-,,-,.L.J.L~prd- huu,y f-hntL.l~£,~,,'L- r-.~ sentatives fror» \Yards or ViUages, the repre- bod~ to represent it on the East Anglian sentatives of t he smaller local bodies within it R~glOnal.IIealth Council, the question at once arc drawn from the Town and Township artses which body has the right to recall A if Communes. \Ve thus get, side by side with it disapproves of his doings. It seems clear representatives of the smaller urban and rural that t.he Norwich Council has the right to re- area administrations within it, the representa- call hl;n from the ~egio?al Council; but has tives of the Guilds, Industrial, Agricultural the ~ ard, by recalling him from the Norwich and Civic, of the consumers' organisations, Council, the right indirectly to recall him from Co-operative and Collective, of the Cultural the Regional Council also? I should say not; and Health Couneils, and perhaps of one or for on the Regional Council he was repre- 136 GUILD SOCIALISM STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNE 137 two other bodies of special importance in the as they did not deal exclusively with muttc:s life of the Region. falling within the sphere cither of the economtc According to our current terminology, all or of the civic bodies, would fall to its lot; but the foregoing Communes would be regarded the victory of democracy in other communi- as organs of Local Government. At present, ties would' tend Loreduce these non-functional however, we draw a sharp and almost absolute external activities to a minimum." The exist- distinction between Local and Central Govern- ence, which we have alreadv assumed, of ment. In the decentralised Guild Society of national functional organisations, based on the which wc are speaking, no such sharp distinc- local and rcgional bodies, in all the various tion would exist ; for by far thc greatest part spheres of social action, would fU:letionali~e of thc work of the conununitv would be car- national equally with local and regional acti- ried on and adminisLered locally or regionally, vities. and the central work would be divided, ac- Into the National Commune, then, would cording to fund ion, among a considerable enter the representatives of thc National number of distinct organisations. There Guilds Agricultural, Industrial and Civic, of would therefore be neither need nor oppor- the N1:tional Councils economic and civic, and tunity for a centre round which a vast aggre- of the Regional Communes themselves. Its gation of bureuucratir: and coercive machinerv general structure would thus be essentially.the could grow up. The national co-ordinating same as that of the smaller Communes which, machinery of Guild Society would be essen- equally with the national functional bodies, it tially unlike the present State, and would have would exist to co-ordinate. It would be a few direct administrative functions. It would much less imposing body as the ('entr~l or~an be mainly a source of a few fundamental de- of Society than the Great Leviathan of to-day, cisions on policy, demarcation between func- I with its' huge machinery of coercion and tional bodies, and similar issues, and of final I bureaucratic government. But it would he adjudications on appeals in cases of dispute; none the worse for that; for where the spirit but it would not possess any vast machinery of community is most at home, there is the t\ of its own, save that, as long as military and machinery of central government likely to be naval force continued to be employed, it would least in e·vidence. have to exercise directly the control of such f I recognise fully that the foregoing descrip- force, as it would indirectly and in the last resort of the law. Foreign relations, so far 12 For a. further treatment of this question, sec the oonoluding Chapter . •• • 138 GUILD SOCIALISM tion may seem a very formal and dogmatic account and far too tidy to be true. t fullv admit it. It is a typical and not an aetw;l structure that I am describing, and in prac- tice, even if the Guild system came to be fullv adopted, there would obviously be all sorts ~f divergences from the theoretical type. It is, however, necessary, in order to be able to argue clearly about the way in which the Guild CHA PTER VIII system would actually work, to lay down its essential structure with a somewhat disagree- THE WOHKING OF TIm COMMUNE able amount of precision. This does no harm, and helps argument very greatly, as long as OUH last chapter, with a compression dictated those who use this method realise that· the by considerations of space, described the com- structure which they are imagining is typical munal structure of Guild Socialist Society, only, and can never become actual in the pre- local, regional and national. 'Ve have now to cise form in which they imagine it. Human make the attempt to show this Society in institutions do not develop in exact accordance action, and to face the question of its manner with logical rules, and, while their essential of dealing with certain of the fundamental development may be guided by human wills, problems of social relationships. 'Ve described the exact form of social changes is largely the main functions of the various Communes determined by historical accident". So it will as falling under five heads, and we shall pro- be even if (iuildsmen get their way entirely; bably do best to follow in our treatment of and it is, of course, far more likely that the problems the arrangement which we there corning Society will be a resultant ~f different employed. . . influences, and will incorporate in its structure Vve have, thcn, to deal WIth the working of no theoretical system as a whole, but parts of communal Society under a Guild system in many and conflicting systems. Nor need we relation to the five following groups of wish it otherwise. problems :- (a) financial problems, especially the alloca- tion of national resources, provision 139 1i L-_. ------./------\VORKING OF THE COMMUNE 141 1-10 GUILD SOCIALISM not for the most part continue to act as the of capital, and, to a certain extent direct servant of the Commune, but will be . regulation?~ incomes and prices; , distributed among the various Guilds and (b) differences ansmg between functional Councils. This will be the case with the Local b(~die~on questions of policy; Government service as well, and indeed almost (c) constitutional questions of demarcation the whole a.dministrative mechanism of the pre- bet ween functional bodies; sent day Will be broken up and re-organised in (d) questions not falling within the sphere connection with the various functional associa- of any functional authority, including tions. Each of these, as well as the Communes general questions of external rela- themselves, will require a small " Civil Ser- tions; vice" of its own, just as a Trade Union or an (e) coercive functions. Employers' Association to-day has its staff of administrators and clerks. The number of These five groups fall, in the main, under these, relatively to the producing section of the two larger groupings. The first three are all people, will, however, be immensely reduced questions of co-ordination in the narrower by the abolition of capitalism; for it is private sense, while the two last are questions, not property that is mainly responsible for the in- themselves of a co-ordinating character which . ' - , flation of non-productive labour. necessarily fall to the body which exercises the \Ve can best approach our first group of task of eo-ordination. . problems by considering first the case of any In considering the first three groups, we single commodity, and proceeding from th~t must bear in mind throughout that all the to the more complicated questions involved. • 1.' • varIOUS Itrnctions whose working they co- The Distributive Guild distributes milk, iet lIS ordinate are fully exercised by various' func- suppose, which it gets from the Agricultural tional bodies working in close ~nd constant co- Guild. The Co-operative Society has the task operation under conditions which we have of dealing with the milk qnestion from the con- already laid down. They do not give rise, sumers'standpoint. Let us confine our atten- therefore, to important administrative acts of tion for the present to the price at which the the Commune itself, which passes on its deci- milk is sold, without raising other questions sions for execution by these functional bodies. which may arise. How is this price deter- I can simply illustrate what I mean by saying mined? Presumably, the Distributive Guild . ' that the present amorphous and swollen Civil basmg its estimate on the price it pays to the Service, so far as its work continues at all, will , 142 GUILD SOCIALISM ,"vonKING OF THE COMMUNE 143 Agricultural Guild, and on its own cost of dis- desirable, for social reasons, to sell a particular tribution, proposes a price, which it submits commodity at either more or less than the to the Co-operative Society. If the two agree, 1 natural price based on its east of production. the agreed price becomes the actual selling Any such decision would have to go before the price without further question. If they dis- Commune, which would determine the alloca- agree, the question must go to the Commune tion of any surplus so realised, or the method of (local, regional or national, as the case may be) bearing any loss. This is, in fact, Guild for discussion and final decision. But probably I " excise" and its opposite. before a final disagreement is reached, a good This consideration of the question of prices, many considerations emerge. If the Co-opera- however, only leads on to a much bigger tive Society is satisfied that the distributive cost problem-that of" capital." One of the most allowed for by the Distributive Guild is reason- frequent questions asked of Guild Socialists is able, but thinks that the price paid to the Agri- how industry and services generally would be cultural Guild is too high, it can either alone, financed under a Guild Society; for dearly it or jointly with the Distributive Guild, take the would not be by the present methods, ranging matter up with the Agricultural Guild directly, from real " saving" out of income to capitalist and again, failing agreement, carry the matter credit manufacture by financial interests. The to the Commune. The Distributive Guild, understanding of this point depends on a clear again, can by itself take up the question with appreciation of the fact that all real additions the Agricultural Guild; but in this ease the to capital take the form of directing a part. of question, being one between two Guilds, the productive power of labour and usmg would, if the Agricultural Guild belonged to certain materials not for the manufacture of the Industrial Guilds Congress, go to that body ultimate products or the rendering of ultimate rather than to the Commune. In one or services but to the manufacture of products another of these ways, a price for milk satis- and the rendering of services incidental to such factory to the social sense of the community manufacture for purposes of further produc- ~in other words, a " Just Price "-would b~ tion. If T spend a thousand pounds on suppers arrived at. This, we may assume, would be at the Savoy, I consume the product of so the normal method of determining prices in a much labour: if I spend the same amount on Guild Society. causing a workshop to be equipped with neces- There is, however, a further social considera- sary new plant, I add so much ~o the tion which might arise. It might be considered " capital" available for future production. -----..•------~------.------..-..... GUILD SOCIA LISM WURKING OF THE COMMUNE 145 It is far from being- the case that the larger i mentally, an allocation of human productive the proportion of its labour power a community power. allocates to " capital" production the happier What, then, will be the method by which the its members are : but it is essential at all times, r Commune will arrive at this allocation? and in accordance with considerations which I Normally each Guild, economic or civic, will I vary from time to time, for a community to prepare 11 budget, showing its estimate of re- preserve a balance between production for quirements both of goods 01' services for imme- ultimate use and production for use in further diate use, and of extensions and improvements. production. And this balance is a matter which In the preparation of these budgets, the ought to be determined by and on behalf of the Guilds will clearly consult one another. These whole community, in all its various aspects and Guild budgets will go before the various Coun- functions. It is not a matter purely for the cils of consumers or citizens, and the Councils economic organisations of producers and con- will be able either to criticise and secure amend- sumers-for economic Guilds and consumers' ment, or to put in alternative requisitions of Councils-since it concerns just as vitally the their own. In any case, all the budgets, with civic organisations. If more is spent on all proposed amendments and requisitions, will economic services there will be less to spend on go before the Commune, or probably in the education, which needs both incomes for its first instance before its Finance Committee, teachers and labour for buildings, books and which will have its staff of expert statisticians. equipment of all sorts. The various budgets will there be brought into The allocation, therefore, of the communal harmony with the estimated national produc- productive resources is a matter for the Com- tion, and, after any necessary further negotia- mune as a whole, and the Commune, either tions have taken place, the complete budget locally, regionally, or nationally, as the case will come up before the Commune as a whole may be, will have to decide both on the allor-a- for ratification. In it will be included the tions to be made to "consumable" and to estimated administrative and other charges of " capital" production and to the services of a the Commune itself, which will be levied non-economic character, and, in detail, on the directly on the Guilds as a form of taxation at allocation to be made to each industry or ser- source. vice. Whether this is expressed in terms of Thus, the allocation of the communal labour- money or not does not matter: it is essentially power and the provision of capital will become an allocation of material and labour, and fund a- matters directly regulated by the Commune, 10 146 GUILD SOCIALISM WORKING OF THE COMMUNE 147 and will not be left, as they are now, to the tional cases, such as enterprises continuing to blind play of economic forces or the machina- be conducted outside the Guild system. It tions of financiers. There will be, for the first taxes at source and draws the sums approved time, an ordered balance of "saving and hy the Commune in the form of an agreed spending, " and a reasoned allocation of effort claim on the labour-power of the Guilds. to various services in accordance with their re- Moreover, the distributions of the Guilds in spective degrees of social utility. And all this the form of income to their members and also will be done by the method of real self-govern- their allocations to capital account being regu- ment, each service and interest having a full lated by the Commune, any surplus realised by opportunity of putting its point of view, and a Guild in its annual working would pass to the taking part in the communal decision. More- Commune for allocation, or be set off against over ,this will take place locally and regionally, the claim of communal services on the pro- in respect of local and regional services, as well ductive Guilds as a whole. as nationally. Let me again emphasise the fact that, in The Guild budgets will, of course, as we saw practice, the greater part of all this detailed in an earlier chapter, 1 include their estimates of financial work would not be done bv the Com- salaries to be paid to their members, and all mune at all, but directly and in consultation questions of income will thus come within the by the various functional bodies. Only moot sphere of the Commune for effective criticism. points needing settlement and general ques- Moreover, the Commune will itself have the tions of principle would normally come before task of determining the allocation of income to the Commune. those sections of the people who are not Before we leave the question of finance, it in receipt of an income directly from a func- is necessary to add that, whether the Guilds tional body. All forms of provision at the com- or the Guild Congress maintain their own munal expense, whether by direct grant of Banks or not, it follows from what has been income or not, would be determined by the said that the issue of credit would be controlled Commune. by the Commune, and that the Guilds could The Guild system has thus a perfectly easy only work within the limits authorised by it. and flexible instrument of taxation. It does Otherwise, the balance between" saving" and not tax the individual, save perhaps in excep- " spending," and among the various services, would at once break down, and the door be 1 See page '7~. again opened to inflation and deflation in new ~------",,---~~----.-~-.-- 148 GUILD SOCIALISM WORKING OF THE COMMUNE 149 forms. The Commune would clearly control Mr. F. \V. Jowett has long been unsuccess- the currency, and the general banking system fully, but very reasonably, urging, would also be communal. The third group of questions-i-constitutional This brings us to our second group of issues of demarcation and powers arising problems-those dealing with the determina- between functional bodies-although they are tion of differences arising on questions of policy to some extent similar to policy issues-raises between functional bodies. This need not far more fundamental considerations; for they detain us lung; for the procedure would be involve the whole problem of constitutional law essentially the same as that which has been under a functionally organised Society. It is already described in the case of differences con- clear that the body which would pass constitu- cerning prices 0'1' cost of production. There tional laws determining the respective spheres would first be every possible effort to' arrive at of the various functional bodies would be the agreement by the method of direct negotiation Commune. Some such laws would, no doubt, between the bodies concerned, and a question be regional and local; but we may take the would only come to the Commune, local, National Commune as the typical body con- regional 0'1' national, after all efforts to agree cerned in this task. The laws, then, are passed upon it directly had failed. Moreover, a ques- bv the National Commune, not necessarily, tion arising between two bodies of the same though possibly, in the shape of a formal type-between two Guilds, for example- written constitution; and clearly the National would nominally be dealt with, on the failure Commune is also the body which has power to of the bodies concerned to' reach an agreement, alter the laws. It is the Constituent Assembly not by the Commune, but by the larger body and the constitutional legislature of Guild including both the organisations concerned-i- democracy. the Guild Councilor Congress, in this case. Disputes, however, will inevitably arise as The Communes would thus have to deal, in to the meaning and interpretation of these laws this sphere, only with exceptional cases. This in particular cases, both on broad general ques- they would probably do, as a rule, through tions of powers and functions, and on quite special committees assisted by experts; for it minor points. These will clearly have to be is probable that must of the detailed work of the dealt with by means of a judicial system, and Commune would be done through committees it seems evident that the judicial system must similar to those which now exist in local be directly subordinate to the Commune. The authorities, and whose adoption by Parliament legal profession would have its Guild and its II 150 GUILD SOCIALISM \VORKING OF THE COMMUNE 151 stron¥ly developed internal self-government; was definitely assigned to the functional body but Judges would be appointed from the under a constitutional law of the Commune. qualified members of the profession, by the The operation side by side of a number .of dis- Commune. These judges would deal with tinct judicial systems would create an Impos- ordinary constitutional cases; but the National sible situation, and the judicial system must Commune should have the power, not merelv therefore be onc, and form a part of the struc- ?f passing .laws, but, in any disputed case ';f ture of the Commune itself. inf.erpret.ul.ion , of declaring its interpretation What I have said of judges and the Legal ?f the law, w.hich should be binding upon the Guild applies only to the higher courts. In Judges. .ThIS tas~ w.ould fall most naturally courts of " summary jurisdiction," I should, to a special ConstItutIOnal Committee of the in a democratic Societv not troubled by class National Commune, whose decisions would differences, favour the' continuanee of lay jus- require ratification by the National Commune tices of the peace, nominated by the local Com- itself. munes. There should also be a right of any I am here speaking directly, not of the whole layman to plead in such courts, and in them ~ody of law: but of the law relating to constitu- legal formalities should be kept d.own to .the tional questions. It seems clear, however, that minimum. This would not lead, m a SOCIety the legal and judicial system as a whole would not burdened with social classes or capitalistic be organised according to the same principles disputes about property, to the confusion of internal self-government for the legal pro- which it might involve at the present day. fession, the appointment of judges by the Com- Our fourth group of questions carries us into munes, nationally or regionally, and the quite a different sphere; for we are now con- .o.n.f!•....•,...n. •.•.••.VV"Io••.•..•...••-J..- l-..~~ .•..L_ ~ 1___ P."1 .•• ..• • •• , .1 ,- .. .L~ .1_ ~.c .J-l~...." ~ULV'LC;HIC;HL uy LUt: juuges 01 tne communal cerned, not witn tne co-orumatrng wors, uJ. Lilt:: law. In a sense, the Guilds and other func- Communes, but with the positive tasks belong- tional bodies would also legislate as local ing to them and not falling within the spher~ authorities do now by means of bye~laws; but of any functional body. These tasks. are of they could do so only within the powers con- three kinds. First, there are tasks which, by ferred by the communal constitution and any reason of their nature, must be retained in the law of a functional body involving' coercion hands of the body which exercises the task ~f should, I think, only become enforce-able in the eo-ordination. Clearly, as long as the POSSI- communal courts after ratification bv the Com- bility of war remains, the power of declaring mune, except in so far as the coe;cive power war and peace must belong to the Commune, l & 152 GUILD SOCIALISM ~WORKING OF THE COMMUNE IS3 and this in turn involves direct control of armed I bodies had their proper places in Embassies and forces, as long as they remain. Army and I Legations, while the consular service would i Navy would, no doubt, be internally organised \ probably become either a 0uild servic~, or one on Guild lines, and we may hope that the Army very closely linked up WIth the Guilds. A at least would be, not a standing full-time particular Guild, too, would. doubtless of~en f?~ce, but a .voluntary part-time Army of maintain its own representatives and trading citizens pursumg normally other avocations. I stations abroad. Such an Army could be, to a great extent I The second kind of task belonging to our administered by the local and regional Com~ fourth group has to do with question~ which munes, and would certainly not be likely to concern either the area of the community as a demonstrate any acute desire to go to war. A whole or the distribution of areas within it. The full discussion of this question, however, would main examples of this type are territorial ~ues- carry us much too far afield. tions of boundaries and colonial possessions, The assigning to the Communes of the power while they continue to exist, and similar ques- of war and peace does not, of course, mean that tions of boundaries and extensions in the the whole of foreign relations would fall within case of Regions, Towns and Townships. their sphere. The whole work of foreign trade These are clearly matters which concern the and cOI?I?ercial relations, for example, would cornmunitv as a whole and each of the func- ?e ad~mmst.eredby the Guilds, working in con- tional bodies severally. The Commune is junction WIth the economic Councils of con- therefore the natural body to deal with them. sumers. Intcrnational civic relations again The third task falling within the fourth would fall within the sphere of the civi~ Guild~ group raises more difficult q~est~ons.. _;H?w- and Councils. It is, however clear that on ever fully the functional organisation of SOCIety a difference of view among' the functi~nal is developed, there will remain matters which bodies concerned, any matter of international neither fall readily within the sphere of any of economic or civic policy might be referred to the functional bodies, nor call for the creation the Commune, and questions of mixed of a separate functional organisation to .deal economic or cultural and political relationships with them. These the Communes would either would be normally so referred. The National assign to the functional body best able to under- Com~une would thus be the supreme repre- take them, or, if this could not be done, would s~ntatrve of the nation abroad; but its organisa- themselves undertake and administer. It tion would ensure that the economic and civic would, of course, always be possible, if at any ~~-----lII!Ia_1II1I1F_.S ••• _.--J------I11111!----...,lIo------~·~----.-.-~.~.~ 154 GUILD SOCIALISM \VORKING OF THE COMMUNE 155 stage the creation of a separate functional body a whole, on the same basis as the various func- for a particular purpose became desirable, for I tional Councils of consumers and citizens, or the Communes to call such a body into the work of regulation could be undertaken, existence, either nationally or in a smaller better as I believe, by the Communes them- area; and probably the method by which the selves, acting through special committees Communes would administer such services appointed for the purpose and including repre- would be by the creation of special committees sentatives both from the various functional or forms of organisation on which the various associations and from various forms of volun- points of view concerned would be repre- tary association existing in the community. sented. These would serve as a nude us if, at It is even possible that the parliamentary a later stage, it became necessary to create a machine, shorn of its economic and civic func- complete functional organisation. tions, might be adapted to deal with this It is difficult to give actual instances of the matter, by the survival of this particular group type of question here contemplated; for the of functions in its hands. Control by the provision is intended mainly to meet condi- Commune would, however, be likely to keep tions which can hardly be foreseen. There is, down to the minimum the amount of social however, one sphere of social life to which this interference in private concerns; and for this proposal has a special relevance. In these reason there is something to be said in its proposals for the communal structure of Guild favour. In any case, laws affecting personal Society no provision is made for a special body relationships and conduct, and involving coer- to deal with the whole sphere of personal and cion, would require, like other coercive laws, private relationships-questions of personal ratification by the Commune. conduct and of personal property relations, The fifth and last group of questions with This is largely because I believe that these which we set ourselves to deal in this chapter matters should be as little regulated as is in reality less a separate group than a possible, except by the force of opinion, and problem arising in relation to all the others. that the need for laws affecting them would It is therefore natural that it has been touched be greatly reduced in a democratic Society. I on to a considerable extent already. The They would, however, dearly remain and have coercive power of the Communes inv~lves two to be regulated to some extent. Rither I separate sets of considerations, the coercion of separate bodies could be created in Towns, individuals into conformity with the com- Townships and Regions, and in the Nation as munal law, and the coercion of functional ~ -_-._cz_---...... ---t- 156 GUILD SOCIALISM WORKING OF THE COMMUNE 157 bod.ies. . Coercio~ is a bad thing, and that to-day, although the State is nominally and SO~Iety IS best which, being founded on just theoretically equipped with full authority to do social arrangements, can dispense with it to the so. fullest extent. Nevertheless, any Societv has The point of view from which this question at present to provide for it and to have a means ought primarily to be regarded is not really of invoking it in the last resort. In relation that of coercion at all. Coercion of a powerful tt;>the i~dividu~l, the difficulty is not to pro- group is inevitably not far removed from civil vide SOcIety.WIth the means of coercion, but war, if the will to resist is present in the group; to prevent It from employing the means it and Society ought therefore to be so ordered possesses far too stringently and often. Pro- that such coercion shall be only invoked in the tection against this would 'be afforded under last resort, and shall be scarcely ever, if at all, Guild Socialist conditions, first by the f~ct that required. The best way of making this pro- the central government would be compara- vision is by ensuring for every reasonable claim ~ively on a small scale and would thus not have the fullest possible amount of social considera- in a high degree the tendency to usurp and tion; for this will have the effect, not only in absorb authori~y,. and secondly hy the preva- most cases of destroying the will of the group lence of association in many forms, which to resist a communal decision, but of bringing wou,ld affoyd to the individual a valuable pro- the social opinion of the community, which is tection WhIChhe now often lacks in face of the a far more effective instrument than direct " Great 1,eviathan." coercion, actively to bear upon the group. This, however, only brings us to the second Guild Society is built on the basis of trusting prob~~: .tha~ ?~the coercion of a group, such the people, and of placing power, and with it as a Gmld, which might refuse to abide-by the responsibility, in the hands of the functional comn:mnal decision. It is clear that direct hodies. This means that these bodies, with coercion of such a group by means of an the fullest chances of stating their case before economi~ boycott, if the social opinion of the the Commune, will be most unlikely to resist a commumty were aroused, would he possible communal decision if it goes against them. but extremely undesirable, It is, however: Our experience of present conditions ought to necessary to point out that this difficulty can have taught us the futility of endeavouring to he raised in very much the same way whatever coerce men into a mood of service plainly ~he social system may be; for we do not find enough to persuade us that the better way is It easy to coerce large and powerful groups that of trusting them. Trust does not and \ ______~----_I- 158 GUILD SOCIALISM vVORKING OF TIlE COMMUNE 159 cannot i~vol:vethe abandonment of all powers immense liberation of social and individual of coercion In the last resort; but it does in- cnergy; and this will flow, not only or mainly volve that reliance should be placed mainly on into the communal organisation of Society, the pressure of argument and communal but into all its voluntary and informal associa- opinion. \Ve want to build a new Society tions, and most of all into the personal relation- whic~ will be conceived in the spirit, not df I ships and activities of its members. This un- coercion, but of free service, and in the belief I organised spirit of the people does not escape not that men must be driven, but that they are the historian who knows his business, though II it is difficult enough to recapture; but the capable of leading themselves, if the conditions I of democratic fellowship are assured. That theorist who sets out to plan a social system is the spi~it in w~ich we must work, regarding for the future cannot call up this spirit, the coercion of either group or individual as a although he knows that his work, because of last a?d desperate remedy, and seeing in the its absence, runs a big risk of seeming unreal functIonal organisation of Societv an immense and out of touch with the deepest human inspiration to willing service and an indispens- needs. But it is not because they worship able safeguard of personal liberty. organisation for its own sake that Guildsmen I am fully conscious that this description of build their plans for a new social structure: the communal working of Guild Society is in it is because they believe that this structure many respects inadequate, and in others far too will liberate energy and promote happiness and d?gm~tic. It is, however, as many writers of achievement in countless directions which it is {J tOPIaS have found, difficult to put life into impossible to foresee. an account of the working of a theoretical I am conscious also that the impression con- system except by sacrificing the aceuracv of veyed by this book, and especially by this t.he pictur~.. The most valuable part or"the chapter and the last, may be that of a terrible hfe and .spmt of a community is nearly always and bewildering complexity of social organisa- t~at which m~st escapes from formal organisa- tion in which the individual will be lost. I tion .. Any pI~tu~e, t?erefore, of the working ask anyone who is inclined to hold that view of s?cIaI organisation IS far indeed from being to devote a brief period to studying the social a picture of the real life of the community' organisation of to-day, not merely in its par- and. this i~ even more true of a really dem"o~ liamentary and political forms, but with all its cratio SOCIetythan under existing conditions. complexity of capitalist, labour, professional, For the effect of real democracy will be an cultural, and other forms of association. Let 160 GUILD SOCIALISM him then ask himself which is thc more com- plicated, and whether it is not the case that the conditions of to-day result everywhere in a medley of conflicting and warring associa- tions formed, for the most part, in order not to fulfil a social function, but to get the best one of another. He will find the structure which I have described both far less compli- cated and far bettcr adapted to its purpose CHAPTER IX than the structure of existing capitalist Society. GUILDSOCIALISMIN AGlUCULTURE SOCIALISTtheories have almost always been based mainly on urban experience, and have found the main body of their adherents among the town workers of the industrial system. Agricultural labourers have, indeed, from time to time organised, usually for a brief period, on Trade Union lines, and various forms of Co-operation, more or less democratic in character, have in many countries struck firm roots in the agricultural population; but Socialists applying themselves to rural problems have usually breathed in the manner of fish out of water. It is true that there has been at all times among Socialists a marked tendency to hold strong opinions about the land, and to stress the iniquity of the private absorption of rent. It is true also that, on more than one occasion a strong "back to the land " enthusiasm has developed in the urban working-class movement, as in the "Land 161 r r I - I.. ------' _.' ~-- r 162 GUILD SOCIALISM ! IN AGRICULTURE 163 Scheme " of F eargus 0' Connor and the free Society? Clearly, the problem is one Owenite ideal of Co-operative settlements in which will have to be worked out in the main the early nineteenth century, and in Blatch- by agriculturalists themselves; and I shall only ford's Merrie England and the writings of attempt in this chapter to give a very general Kropotkin in more recent times. But pro- indication of the way in which a "layman" bably no Socialist Party except the Social looks at it in the light of the general Guild Revolutionaries of Russia had until the last principles that have been already stated. Nor few years any considerable agrarian following; shall I attempt to deal at all with the wider and, even to-day, nearly all the Socialist and question of the relative places which industrial Labour Parties, to say nothing of the rural and agricultural production should occupy in Trade Unions themselves, are without a dear, a healthy community, not because it is not practical and constructive policy capable of important, but because it would take me much being applied to agricultural production. too far afield. 1 That this is a fact and a serious weakness is It is dear at the outset that our general prin- ,generally recognised, both in the countries in ciples prescribe two things-first that the ,vhich peasant ownership largely prevails and workers on the land, under whatever systems in those which, like Great Britain, possess a they work, must enjoy forms of self-govern- large farmer class and a corresponding agricul- ment corresponding to those of industrial, pro- tural proletariat. To these two types of fessional and civic service workers; and countries the problem dearly presents to a secondly that the private appropriation of rent large extent a different aspect, at least when must give way to a communal appropriation. imn1f'oiate nolicv is in auestion. It mav also But our principles do not prescribe either ~~~ii--b-~~th~i-t-h~~~idedifferences which now large-seale cultivation or small-scale cultiva- exist in methods of agricultural production tion, either the elimination or the continuance under capitalism will persist under Socialist of the peasant form of individual farming. A conditions, although they will greatly change good many Socialists, especially of the " State their character. Socialist" variety, have fallen into the error Have Guildsmen a way of dealing with the of assuming that Socialism commits them to agricultural problem, or, in other words, does 1 As I write, the National Guilds League, with the aid of its members the Guild philosophy which I have been who have a practical agricultural experience. if! endeavourine to work out its answer to this problem. What I say in this chapter is purely expounding convey any clear message as to a personal and provisional opinion. which I am Quite ready to change, the best form of agricultural organisation in a on reason shown. I l-- IN AGRICULTURE 165 164 GUILD SOCIALISM large-scale State farming, and that agriculture Guild, decentralised and regionaliscd to a cannot be ripe for Socialism until capitalist great extent, can undertake the control of methods have been applied to it, and small- large-scale agriculture quite as easily and scale cultivation either eliminated or greatly naturally as of large-scale industry. There are reduced. Kautsky, for instance, argues on likely, indeed, even on this side, to be certain these lines in his attack on Bolshevism, and the differences between the functions and struc- Bolshevists, while they are realists enough not ture of an Agricultural Guild and those of the to attempt to force " communist" agricul- normal industrial Guild. For example, the ture, as they understand it, on the Russian members of the Guild who work on large farms pe~sa~ts, seem equally to take as their rural and apply to their cultivation the latest objective the replacement of small-scale bv scientific methods of large-scale production large-scale cultivation. This is perhaps easy will almost certainly often have and work small to understand in a country so primitively individual holdings of their own in addition, under-farmed as many parts of Russia are and will draw from the Guild implements, to-day; but it seems to me nevertheless a quite manures and other requisites and assistance in wrong and unnecessary assumption. Socialism the working of these holdings. Again, in a is fully as compatible with small-scale cultiva- village almost wholly concerned in agricultural tion as with large-scale "industrialised" production, the Agricultural Guild might farming. easily in many cases develop the functions not . 'Ve should, then, both leave open the ques- only of a producers' organisation and of a bon of the scale on which farming will be con- supply agency for agricultural requisites, but ducted under Socialism, and make provision also of a general consumers' Co-operative in our schemes for the' continuance' of both Society, and might even admit into member- large and small farming under conditions in ship isolated villagers engaged, not directly in accordance with our democratic principles. agriculture, but in some small-scale occupation 'Ve have thus a double problem to deal with ministering to rural needs. The village is, in -the form of large-scale agriculture under many cases, so small a unit as not to require Guild Socialism, and the forms, and relation the same elaborate differentiation of functional to the large-scale system, of continuing bodies as larger aggregations of population re- peasant cultivation. quire, and the Agricultural Guild, administered Clearly, no considerable difficulty arises in bv forms of the most direct democracy, would connection with the former type. A National naturally share with the Village Council a I ------Jl --_ .._- -'-"- ... -----_._ .. - ... 166 GUIl.D SOCIALISM IN AGRICULTURE 167 tendency to absorb the minor functions carried full development of Co-operative methods and on '~ithin its ~rea. Similar tendencies might in integral connection with the Agricultural be displayed, In a purely mining village by Guild. the Miners' Guild. ' There is manifestly no reason why a man With these important differences however should not, and every reason why he should, the. Agricultural Guild, so far as iarge-scal~ be free in a democratic Society to till a plot agriculture I.S concerned, would present almost of land in his own way, subject to minimum exactly similar features to those common to safeguards as to proper use of the land. There o.th~r economic ~nd service Guilds, possessing is every reason why he should not be free to slmIlll:rl?cal, regional and national machinery, exploit the labour of his wife and children; but and similar forms of internal democratic con- these are matters to be dealt with by social trol ~nd self-management. The large-scale regulation by the whole community in the case of children, and in that of women, by women farm IS as natural a unit of self-government as ,I the factory, and a democracy extending to the enjoying the economic and social independence local, regional and national organisation could which Guild Socialism must assure them. In as easily be based upon it. a democratic Society, the object is the greatest . ~man-scale production presents a more freedom to every man to behave and produce difficult, largely because a less familiar us he chooses, consistently with social well- problem. It is at present carried on eithe;' being; and there is every reason for believing by small holders or proprietors employing no that, especially where every acre counts and one except members of their own family, or intensive production is important, the indi- ?y small farmers, usually farming a rather vidual agricultural producer will have a large l~Lr!fer area, and employing, though to a sphere of social usefulness, if not in the main limited extent, hired labour. Can we con- forms of rural production, at any rate in many template at all, and, if so, under what condi- of its minor forms-market gardening, poultry tions, the continuance of either or both of these farming, and the like. forms of cultivation in a Guild Socialist The suggestion, however, that the indi- Society? I at any rate, under the necessary vidual holder should be tolerated on a scale s~feguards, am fully prepared for the con- which would entail the employment by him of tmuance of both to a considerable extent not " hired labour," or at any rate the labour on under their present conditions of isolation and the farm of a number of individuals not being purely individualised production, but with a members of a single family, will, unless it is r----- 168 GUILD SOCIALISM ! IN AGRICUT.TURE 169 clearly understood, be likely to provoke con- however, that this right must be very strictly sid~rable Socialist opposition. It is obviously safeguarded, and that the best safeguard-and desirable that, as far as possible, this form of one that would arise naturally out of the production, where it persists, should be carried development of agricultural Trade U nioni~rn out not by one man employing others, but by -is that all such labour should be supplied an associated group of producers working to- only through and by the Guild, and under con- gether democratically with differences of func- ditions as to the employment and status of the tion and recognised authority but not of social workers concerned which the Guild itself status. The small or middle-sized farm con- would lay down. Probably such labour would ducted OIl this principle could, in many cases, be almost entirely part-time labour required at be directly a part of the Guild, and the asso- special seasons, and it might be largely that, ciated producers on it could be a unit in the not of regular agricultural labourers, but either (~uild organisation. But, just as we have pro- of industrial workers harvesting or doing a vided for workshops remaining outside the spell of rural work, or of small-holders giving Guilds, or only loosely connected with them, occasional help OIl the larger farms. Such 11.lanyf~~rnlsconducted on the associative prin- workers, except where the relation was one of ciple might occupy a similar position, bound friendship with an individual fanner, should to comply in certain respects with Guild regula- get their rural job through the Agricultural tions, and probably using the Guild, partly at Guild. least, as an agency for purchase and sale, but I envisage, then, a rural system including otherwise on their own. The Guild would thus both large- and small-scale forms of cultiva- tend to assume, for such farms, the func- tion, conducted partly under the direct aus- tions of an Agricultural Co-operative Society, pices of an Agricultural Guild, largely decen- or, in some cases, these groups of associated tralised and regionally administered, and producers might organise in Agricultural Co- partly by individual producers or by associaled operative Societies of their own, either gTOUpSworking more or less closely in conjunc- federated with the Guild or separate from it. tion with the Guild and under general Guild This, however, still leaves to be faced the regulations. The closer this connection could question of " hired labour." I simply do not be made, and the more the Guild could com- feel that it is practicable to deny to the small- bine with its direct organisation of production scale producers, whether individual or associa- the functions of an agricultural producers' Co- tive groups, all right to employ others. I feel, operative Society in relation to small-scale ••• 7 Tn £ , I 170 GUILD SOCIALISM IN AGRICULTURE 171 farmers, clearly the better for the smooth every sign of rcproducing in the countryside working of the dual system; and I believe the most of the features of the contest of tendency under democratic conditions would capitalists and workers in in~us~ry.. That to be for the two methods, starting perhaps some extent this conflict IS inevitable the widely apart, to grow rapidly together. The determined opposition of most farmers to .all Agricultural Guild would clearly be based attempts of the rural workers. to establish mainly on the rural workers' Trade Unions of reasonable conditions of life sufficiently shows; to-day, as the industrial and service Guilds will but it is nevertheless a mistake to. eq,nate the be based on Trade Union and professional farmers as a class with the capIt~hsts ~ho organisations. The growth of an organisation dominate almost all important industries. capable of binding together the independent The average fanner may be, and is, no bet~er producers into a body capable of working' in mentality and outlook than the average m- in democratic association with the Agricultural dustrial employer; but he is, on the average, a Guild depends partly on the development of great deal his ~etter ~n the fa~:t that he IS pe:~ a democratic Agricultural Co-operative Move- forming a useful SOCIalfunction more or less ment not controlled, as the present British in the way in which it ought to be performed, movement so largely is, by landowners and and would continue to be performed in H politicians, but expressing directly thc point democratic community. He exploits labour, of view of the agricultural producers them- it is true' but so does HTrade Union or a Co- selves. The Irish Agricultural Organisation operative'Society. The poin~ is that! under Society is to a great extent such a movement changed conditions and especlal~y during the already. The existence of such bodies is not at period of transition, .t~e fHr!ner '~lnr~~na~~:~~ an inconsistent with the membership of most perform a useful SOCIalservice, wnen tne IIlUU:S- small-holders in the Agricultural Guild. trial capitalist has disappeared." It is plain enough that the principal question It is, in fad, a mistake to regard the farm~rs of immediate practical importance which as Hwhole as a single and homogeneous. SOCIal emerges from this outline of a possible demo- or economic class. This fact, under their very cratic agricultural organisation is that of the different conditions of wide~pread pea~ant position of the farmer. At present, where an cultivation, has been very definitely recognised organised agricultural proletariat exists, a 2 The small industrial employer may, of course. ,ISf r~!"aill a~~J1I~o~~ serious struggle is beginning between it and extent durinc the transition, Milch the same Icons), era !()~. try than him a~ to the farmer; hut he bulks much less urge Y 1Il 1Il( us the employing farmers, and the struggle shows the farmer in agriculture. -" .._.""'.•..., ·, •••• '1_1&1121211, ••• ------··· r-- I 172 GUILD SOCIALISM I IN AGRICULTURE 173 I by the Russian Communists, who have out than I have been able to attempt in this directed a great deal of energy to the detaching I chapter. The actual and manifest tendency in of the poorer cultivators from their former I certain countries already, as in Canada and to i social subservience to the richer peasants." a less extent in the IT nited States, in the Our problem is not the same; but other coun- ! direction of an alliance betwecn a large section tries too have the task of bringing about a re- ,I of organised farmers and the Trade U ni(~n flexion, in social organisation and economic Movement encourages me to hope that, I? allegiance, of the difference between the capi- other countries also, a similar development IS talist farmer who requires to be expropriated not out of the question, however unpromising and the socially useful individual cultivator, at the moment, on a cursory survey of the who lives by his work and has no chance or situation, its chances may appear to be. prospect of accumulating riches or turning into a "eountry gentleman." I believe the way to this recognition and change in outlook lies through the full recognition of the place of small- and middle-seale agriculture in the coming Society, and in the fostering of demo- cratic organisation on producers' Co-operative lines among the smaller farmers as well as of Trade Unionism among the agricultural labourers. The fissure can, of course, really come only in the ranks of the farmers them- selves; but the possibility of its coming depends on the development by Socialists of a democratic agricultural policy in which the small farmer will see an assured place for him- self. I believe that Guild Socialism is broad and adaptable enough to provide this assur- ance; but I fully recognise that the problem requires far more detailed and expert working 3 Sec the latter part of Lenin's book. The Proletaria7l Revolution. for the clearest exposition of Bolshevik land policy. ..- I 7 EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION 175 though it probably always involves some employment of force, cannot be taken as ne~es- sarily involving force on a scale at all deservmg the name of civil war. The first Russian Revolution of 1917 and the German Revolu- tion of 11)18 were both definitely revolutions, and were accompanied by sorne appeal to force; but in neither was force, in the sense of CHAPTER X armed conflict, employed on any considerable scale. The old constitutional system which EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTIOK was displaced crumbled, and a different system took its place, with the minimum of fighting. \VE have now completed our outline sketch There are, of course, many who contend that of the structure and methods of working of a this is one of the main reasons why both these Guild Socialist Commonwealth, and have thus Revolutions achieved so little, and that real come to the threshold of the practical problem social revolution, involving a change of social of transition to it from the capitalist Societv and economic svstem as well as of political in- of to-day. And here the first question th~t stitutions, will 'never be accomplished save by confronts us, as it confronts all Socialists under a much more extensive employment of armed the conditions of the present time, is the ques- power; but, whether this is true or not, it is tion of " evolution and revolution." Do we clearlv necessarv to distinguish between hope and intend to bring about the great social catastrophic change in which armed power, in- transformation to which we look forward by sofar as It exists, is only a secondary factor, and purely evolutionary means, or do we antici- catastrophic change in which armed power is pate, at some stage, a phase of catastrophic or uetuallv the principal agent of transformation. revolutionary transition? Similarly, the word "evolutionary" has The question, stated, as it usually is, in that more than one sense. It is often interpreted form, is to some extent misleading; for the to mean practically "political," and evolu- word" revolutionary," and to a less extent the tionarv methods are treated as identical with word "evolutionary" also, are capable of the constitutional employment of parlia- bearing a variety of interpretations. Revolu- mcntaryaction. But there is also a wider sense tion, or catastrophic transition, for example, in which " evolutionary" tactics can denote a '74 1 , 176 GUILD SOCIALISM EVOLUTION AND ItEVOLlJTION 177 method applicable not merely to politics, but cessfully, to capitalist Direct Act.ion or to to every sphere of social action, economic and armed force. And, usually though not uni- civic as well as political. versally, those against whom the extreruer . "\;Y~ shall ~lo well, then, to re-state om ques- methods are employed have either to submit, tion in a different form, or rather series of or to retaliate by employing the same methods forms. First, we must ask whether constitu- themselves. 1t is an obvious fact that capi- tional political action alone affords a possible talism will not stay quiet and do nothing while agent of social transformation, or whether it is we mobilise our resources against it: in one even possible for the political changes involved way or another, it will struggle hard for its in social transformation to retain through- existence, and the tactics of its opponents will out a consistently constitutional character, inevitably be guided, if not determined, by the Secondly, we must ask whether evolutionary tactics of its defenders. methods morc widely conceived as including Nor is it possible to unticipute thaL the ques- industrial and civic forms of Direct Actio; tion of methods will be decided by either party short of revolution can suffice to meet the on a strictly rational basis. On both sides needs of social transformation. If we are still there is the factor of mob-psychology to be unsatisfied, we must next enquire how far reckoned with; and we have ulreadv seen catastrophic action without civil war mav be enough to make us feel that, as we ean~ot rule relied upon to meet the need, and, lastly, if out the possibili ty of lIIl instincti ve and irra- need be, we must examine the chances and uses tional popular outbreak, so we can by no means of civil war. be sure that the governing classes will not lose Throughout our examination of these issues, their heads and -appeal to force out of sheer we must remember that it will be, to a great panic. For" Dyerism " at home and abroad extent, not the chnllengers but the defenders is, like war itself, largely "the offspring of of the capitalist system who will have the fear." choice of weapons. "\Yhatever methods We cannot, then, sit in our chairs and lay Socialists, including Guild Socialists, may down with scientific precision the strategy and regard as the most hopeful for the attainment tactics of the Guild Socialist, or of any great of the social reorganisation which they desire social, transformation. All we can do is to it will always be possible for the d·efender~ see what is the utmost, under the actual condi- of capitalism, if they feel their position tions, that any given method of action seems threatened, to appeal, successfully or unsuc- capable of achieving, and to make up our 12 178 GUILD SOCIALISM EVOLUTION AKD REVOLUTION 17H minds not to use an extreme method if a less "dass-conscious" Government; because, in the extreme method promises to fulfil the same second place, this Government, if it could purpose. \Ve can avoid revolution for revolu- exist, would find the change impossible to tion's sake; but we cannot, even if we believe achieve in less than a century by parliamentary that transformation without revolution is methods; because, in the third place, the exist- practir-allv possible, say that it will be so ing State organisation is quite unsuited to the accomplished. For there are not merely two execution of any purpose involving funda- parties to the struggle, each with a will of its mental structural changes in Society; and own-there is also a very powerful third party, because, in the fourth place, the attempt to which we mav call, according to our taste, bring about the transformation by political either chance or fate, - means alone would almost inevitably, long It is, however, worth while, with all these before its completion, provoke a counter-revo- considerations in mind, and with the accom- lutionary movement by the governing classes, plished f'act of the Russian Revolution before based on their power in the economic sphere. us, to consider what is the utmost possible The period required to convert, in opposition capacity of the various methods that are pro- to the whole force of money-directed educa- posed for our adoption in changing the face of tion, propaganda and pressure, a majority of Society. Let us enquire first, then, what is the people to a habit of sound political thinking the utmost that we can hope to get by the use is a sufficient reason against the practicability of constitutional political action. It is of no of social transformation by this means; for advantage, in this connection, to r-ount up the long before the culmination of the process the total number of more or less working-class present economic system would have fallen in voters. and to point out that it is theoretically ruins owing to the operation of other causes possible for these voters to return a working- already defined in this book. I do not mean «lnss hovernment that means business, and for that it might not be possible, and even easy, the C~overnmcnt, under our elastic constitn- before long to secure a Labour Governlllcnt ; tional arrangements, to transform the whole but I mean that such a Government would organisation of Society. It is of no advantage probably arrive at power only if it were certain because, in the first place, there is no chance in advance that it would not even attempt any under capitalism of the whole working-class radical social transformation, and would in any voting togpther, or of a really "class-con- case find the task of accomplishing slIch a scious " majority rcturning to power a really transformation almost insuperably difficult. ------" 180 GUILD SOCIALISM EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION 181 Indeed, a Labour Government would be far working-class economic power, based .on .the more likely to come as a brake than as a spur. control which the working-class orgamsatlOns The fundamental reason why political possess over the labour-power of their methods alone will not do for the purpose of members. This may take the form on occa- radical social transformation is that the trans- sion of "direct action" for a political pur- formation required is fundamentally not pose; but its normal exercise is for definitely political but economic. It is undeniably true economic ends. It is the instrument by the that, under the capitalist system, "economic use of which the Trade Union Movement has power precedes political power." It is the not only increased wages and improved condi- object of Guild Socialists to destroy this pre- tions, but also greatly raised the status of the dominance of economic factors; but that only workers and established already a considerable makes them the more conscious of its existence measure of negative and external control over to-day. It is the economic, rather than the industry. Clearly this process can be pushed political, power of the workers that will avail considerably further, as it is indeed being to overthrow capitalism; and, while this pushed further by one Union or another every economic power may at times assume It day. The Unions can extend, and are extend- political expression, it will operate mainly ing' the amount of their control over industry, , .' , h f within its own sphere. The utmost, then, that and in some cases, as in the miners sc eme 0 we can expect of working-class political action public ownership an~l democratic control or is that it should serve to support the exercise the direct constructive experiments of the of working-class economic power, and to ease Building Guilds, are already putting fo!·ward and smooth a transition which it is impotent claims whose realisation would result III an actually to accomplish. Properly understood, important transformation of the productive this may he an important secondary function; control of industry. _ . . but it is no more. There is, however, clearly a limit to this \Ve have, then, to consider carefully the process. It can be used to wrest the control other methods of evolutionary action which are of the productive operatio~s o~industry largely at the disposal of the working-class movement. from the hands of the capitalists, and even, III With some of these we shall be dealing more some cases, to bring about the substitut~on of fully in the next chapter; but we can here public for private oW!1ers~ip". ~t can, In the discuss them in general terms. Clearly, the form of " Direct Action." as It IS now under- most important is the direct manifestation of stood, be used for the furtherance of isolated n i EVOLUTION AND HEVOLUTJOK 183 lR2 GUILD SOCIALISM demands of an even more fur-reaching char- for them to pursue? They would presumably acter, extending to considerable inroads- on the not attempt to provoke an outbreak in reliance rights of property. Rut I do not see how, either purely on the deliberate revolutionaries among the workers, but would pursue the process ol' alone or in .combination with the political weapon or with other evolutionary weapons, educating, organising and extending the such as the conquest of power in local govern- revolutionary minority, and would lie in wait ment. and the maximum development of to seize their chance to base a revolutionary working-class education, it can be made an movement on some widespread industrial or instrument of complete social transformation, " direct action" crisis. They would, in the or of the central process in that transformation meant.ime, naturally use every effort to --the actual wresting from the rich of their improve the organisation of Labour and to wealth and economic power. persuade it. to assume more militant tactics. In other words, a revolutionary element is So far they would agree; but at this point a \ln~voidable in a?y "thorough '" policy of difference might arise among them as to the SOCIaltransformation. But it is none the less meaning of the word "revolution." Some clear ~hat the I~laximum development of the would conceive of it as a sort of extension of evolutionary policy, especially on its economic "direct action" -a paralysing of the and industrial side, would not merely make the economic life of Society through the general ch~nces ?f th,e success of any " revolutionary" strike, resulting in the dislocation and collapse action infinitely greater, but would tend of its political machinery. Others would con- to reduce to the minimum the amount of ceive of it. as actually assuming the form of civil " revolutionary" action required. Before war. Let us take the latter possibility first. developing this point, let us look for a moment Reai civil war can onlv be conducted when at the possibilities of " revolutionarv " action both parties to the conflict are urmcd. The taken by itself, or rather based upon the pre, arming of the workers, however, could not pos- sent strength and organisation of the working- sibly be accomplished in either Great Britain class movement. or 'America, whatever may be the case in If we assume the "class-conscious" Germany or Italy, until and unless the process elements among the workers to have made up of dissolution and decay of the capitalist s~'stel1l ~heir l1:inds, as some among them have, that and of its political machinery has proceeded Im;11edwte "revolutionary" action is re- much further than it has at. present. j\ revolt quired , what line of policy would it be natural of the Army, which seems the onlv alternative, 184 GUILD SOCIA LISM EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION 185 i~ most improbable as the result of any revolu- capitalism of Great Britain or America would tionary propaganda, and would onIv be at all require a very much stronger, and more f~lly l~kcly to oc~ur if, when a revo]utio;lary situa- awakened, Labour Movement than now exists t~on had arisen from apparently non-revolu- in either countrv. uonary causes, soldiers were asked to shoot The working-class that would do this would persons whom they regarded as harmless have to be not only stronger in itself-that is, fellow-citizens. It might occur in such cir- in numbe;s, organisation, determination, and cumstances; but this would come about not dear vision of policy-but also more strongly through the efforts of the revolutionaries, but entrenched. In other words, it would need. to for reasons which they are almost powerless to have carried the evolutionary processes WIth mHucnce. This is very widely recognised, and which we have dealt already much further than few who call themselves revolutionaries have they have yet been carried; for the, pro~esses, II1u~hfaith .i~ the results of deliberately pro- while thev are bv themselves essentially made- voking a CIVIl war for which thev have no quate for' the tu~k of radical social transforma- means of preparing. ' tion, are the necessary precursors of any suc- The second alternative, envisaged by those cessful revolutionary action. In th~ most who regard revolution as extended " Direct successful emeui.e that can be conceived of Action," is more plausible, but leaves, at pre- to-day the workers would be confronted with ~en~, far too much to providence. It depends the rr;lmediate and imperative necessity of lor Its succes~ op the power of the workers, by occupying simultaneously many., thousand means of ~helI' mdustnal organisation, without strategic points-not merely of seizing P?wer first sta;vmg themselves out, to hold up the at the centre and improvising a PrOVISIOnal econormo .iTIeclulnlsnl of Society for a long Covernment.,. ., but of seizing thousands.. of local. enough. tune to cause the political and civic bodies, of taking over and Ilnprovlsl~g econ~mlC ~tructu!'e ?f the present system to administrations in many thousands of factories fall m rums. This, I believe would be -of learning in a day a thous~lnd lessons of possible for a Labour Movement p~sscssing the self-mastery and communal service. I do n.ot present strength of our own, only in face of a say that it could not be done; but I say that Its capitalist Society far less strong t'han our own, doing would be a miracle. and only at a quite exceptionally favourable The further, however, thc workers ~'an moment, such us occurred in Russia in 1917. carry, without sacrificing t~e ideal of radical To overthrow by this means the far stronger transformation, the evolut.ionnry process of 186 GUILD SOCIALISM EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION 187 detailed conquest of power in each sphere, and or because the contending part.ies have merely above all in the spheres of industry and local muddled themselves into a situation from government, the less insuperable these objec- which there is no other outlet. If such a move- tions appeal'. Development of Trade Union ment were to come soon, I do not, unless the membership, organisation and education ex- circumstances were almost unbelievably tends and improves the fighting force: favourable, cherish much hope of a working- development of Co-operation improves the class success on the first occasion; but neither rationing facilities' : conquest of power in local have T any fear of a lasting working-class government simplifies the administrative defeat. I believe, however, that the vast transition, and places important economic majority of class-conscious workers will have services in the workers' hands: the extension no desire to tempt these perils unless they are of Trade Union control weakens the convinced that no alternative is open to them. capitalists' hold on the faetories, and helps to Especially for Guild Socialists, who ha~e not teach the workers how to run industry them- only a positive ideal but a definite evolut~(mary selves. He who wishes revolution to' succeed programme, it seems clear that the thing to should hasten towards it slowly, and prepare aim at-whether we can in f'act attain to it or the way for it by detailed conquests. not-is not early revolution, but the consolida- But, as I made clear at the outset, it is the tion of all Forces on the lines of evolutionary challenged who chooses the weapons, and we development with a view to making the" revo- oannot be sure that our ordered advance will lution," which in one sense must come, as proceed according to plan. Least of all can little as possible a civil war and as much as pos- any group of workers in Europe be sure of this sible a registration of accomplished facts and a in face of the steady disorganisation of the culmination of tendencies already in operation. European economic and political system which The complete change which we desire e(~lllrl was hastened rather than arrested by the Peace not be carried through wholly by ronst.itn- of Versailles. At any moment, it is at least tional means, industrial or political, even if the possible that a revolutionary situation may governing classes were to allow the develop- arise, either because the possessing class~s ments which undermined their power to pro- think that the moment for resistance has come, ceed to the end without resisting them by force; but at the best the unconstitutional 1 Co operatlve Soclet.ies, by nssurlnz food aupptlcs. have already giYen considerable help in trade disputes, as in the Dublin strike of 1918-:1.. " revolution" might be reduced to a mere and the Hailwav Strike of IP}9, This help is capable of heing very g'reat.lj- extended. clearing away of what had already become use- r 188 GUILD SOCIALISM less debris of a decayed system, and the rapid organisation into a recognised social system of forces and institutions which had already attained under capitalism to considerabie powers and functions by methods of encroach- ment. If we cannot achieve this, and if revolu- tion, owing to the resistance of the possess- ing classes, comes more quickly than we get ready for it, and therefore assumes a more CHAPTER XI forcible character, we shall be all the better pre- pared in proportion to the advances which we TilE POLICY OF TRA"lSITION have made by the method of encroachment up to the time of its arrival. The policy which I TUE two great working-elass movemcnts=- am advocating must, if it is to succeed, be not Trade Unionism and Co-operation-on which slow, but rapid: it is, however, gradual, in the I have dwelt so much in the foregoing chapters, literal sense, that it proceeds by steps. It will have both made remarkable progress during not appeal to those who seek to model their the last few years. Kor is there any consider- conduct blindly on the Russian Revolution; able doubt that this progress will continue; but I do not believe that, unless quite unfore- for both movements fulfil purposes which a seen circumstances arise, Russian methods can growing proportion of the workers recognise be applied either to the British or to the as essential. There are, however, in both cases American situation. obvious checks on this advance. Trade U nionism thrives on good trade rather than on bad, and, even apart from this fact, its very success is constantly bringing' it face to face with more formidable obstacles, and notably, just at present, with a growing deterll1ination of the possessing classes either to tame it into aceeptance of capitalism or to ('rush it. if they cannot. In the ease of Co-operation, which is as yet, despite its theorists, in practice a far ISq HIQ GUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF TRANSITION 191 less ambitious movement. the main check is Co-operative Movement under capitalism. imposed by the fact that Co-operation, work- The fuller utilisation of working-class re- ing under capitalist conditions, depends for its sources for Co-operative development would advance on securing' adequate capital by volun- do something, but not enough; for Co- tary means. As members' share capital in- operators are faced by the fact that it is simply creases but slowly, a sudden accession of mem- not possible, at least within any measurable bership may easily mean that there is not period, to drive the possessing classes out of cnough capital available from this source to industry simply by competing with them finance the necessary expansions, still less to under conditions which these classes them- do the pioneering work required to bring about selves prescribe. Moreover, Co-operation, if a further widening of the movement, The it were really dangerous to large-scale Co-opcrati ve Wholesale Society, confronted capitalism, would probnblv soon learn that the with this problem, recently resorted to the possessing classes have still the power, if they debatable expedient of raising debentures in think it necessary, to alter the competitive con- the open market-a course which, though the ditions to suit themselves. The attempts to interest was fixed, would obviously have a tax Co-operative Societies may be regarded as tendency to assimilate it further to' capitalist a slight foretaste of such a policy. concerns, Evon if this expedient is employed, It is, however, clear that, as long as Co- there can be no doubt that the problem operation continues along its present lines, the of capital is by itself quite enough to prevent main assault upon the strongholds of the Co-operative Movement, however it may capitalism will not be its handiwork. It may, expand in the sphere of distribution, from and certainly will, help by placing its resources seriously challenging within any measurable more fully at the disposal of its members who period the domination of capitalism over pro- are engaged in the combat and of the Trade duction. Its producti ve achievements are Union Movement as a whole; hilt it is upon startling enough when t.hev arc compared even the Trade Unions that the brunt of the with those of the largest individual capitalist struggle will fall. It is upon 0111' SIl<'C'CSS in firms; but thev arc very small indeed in com- laying the foundations of the Guild even under parison with' the v~lllme of competing capitalism that the chances of Guild Socialism capitalist enterprise as a whole. really depend, and the prohlem of the transi- There are ways of mitigating, but not of re- tion to Guild Socialism is therefore primarily moving, this obstacle to the expansion of the a problem of Trade Union development. r I 192 GUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF TRANSITION Hl3 It is not possible here to describe in detail ment as a whole, or by the dominant sec-tions the stage of development and of positive within it. Unions quarrel fiercely one with achievement which Trade Unionism has now another about all manner of questions, but reached. It has expanded its membership to above all about membership and demarcation; the point of being practically blackleg-proof and, when it is with the employers that they among the manual workers in many of the quarrel, the lack of constructive proposals and leading industries, and especially in those demands is often the most notable feature of which arc of the greatest strategic importance. their programme. They literally do not know There are six and a half, and probably more w hat to ask for, or at least have, for the most nearly seven, million Trade Unionists, and part, not yet learned to translate vague aspira- these include nearly all the most important tions into actual and definite proposals capable elements amongst the manual workers, with of immediate enforcement. an increasing, though still relatively small, pro- There are, then, at least four respects in portion of non-manual workers as well. New which the Trade Union Movement requires classes of workers are rapidly organising, fundamental reorganisation in order to fit itself especially among the latter, and gradually the for any considerable further advance-most of " black-coated" are realising the expediency all if that advance is to be directed to Junking of throwing in their lot with the manual the Trade Unions of to-day the basis of the workers in their struggle. Moreover, the Guilds of to-morrow. In the first place, the Trade Unions have achieved a large amount basis of membership must be effectively of negative control over industry through the broadened, not only by the inclusion of the method of collective bargaining, and, strategi- non-manual workers, but by a definite and cally most important of all, are rapidly reach- formal recognition of their distinctive position ing the point at which they can, if they will, in the conduct of industry. Secondly, the make the capitalist system, if not unworkable, basis of organisation must be settled, and the at nll events very uncomfortable to work and Trade Union Movement changed from a eon- to live under. geries of mutually suspicious and of'tcn «on- There are, however, considerable weaknesses f1icting units into a rationally organised body, still apparent in Trade Unionism, formidable following in the main the "industrial" form as it has become. There is still no coherent of organisation, and binding together the plan of Trade Union organisation, and no con- whole of the Trade Unionist workers into a sidered policy accepted either by the move- single effectively directed force, really r-apable 13 r THE POLICY OF TRANSITION 19c'i }94 GUILD SOCIALISM to create the n iechunism or a Trade Union of united action on matters of common con- ., General Staff"; but it is far less easy to cern. Thirdly, the internal government of make it work unless there is a dear conception the Unions needs to be demoeratised by the of the object for which it is working. It is recognition of the workshop, or its equivalent, easy to plan ideal schemes either for "One as the essential basis of organisation, on which Big l'n!on," or for "union by industry"; the larger units of administration ought to be but the Impulse required to carry such schemes built up. And fourthly, the Trade Union into effect will come only with the realisation Movement needs a clear and definite policy, that craft Unionism is incapable of achieving the same in its fundamental principles for all real control in industry, and that not only can workers, but admitting of wide variations " Industrial Unions" or the sections of " One according to the nature and cireulllstances of BIg· U'"mon qllarre I among themselves, but each industry and group. Moreover, such a the mere form of organisation is nothing with- policy must have two aspects, It must indi- out the spirit and the purpose behind it. cute the right demands to make upon l.t would take a whole book, and not merely employers in industrial negotiations, and it a single comparatively brief chapter, to give must also give clear guidance as to the attitude any full indication of the nature of the chances of the workers towards the State, not only as required in Trade Union organisation under employers, hut in all the various aspects in the first. three heads which I have mentioned, which it faces Labour. u?d I shall not here attempt any such impos- These four aspects of Trade U nion re- Sible task. To a great extent the problem organisation hang very closely together, and has to be faced for itself by each industry; but their realisation is to a great extent inter- even an exposition of the ccneral Dri~cillies dependent. But it is mainly the inst-the involved would take us too f:;;' afield.! I n;ust question of policy-upon whieh the others therefore content myself with pointing out depend; for the only power strong enough to that, if Trade Unions are to serve as the basis enable the obstacles to internal Trade Union of Guilds, (1) they must dearly be organised on reorganisation and the finn union of workers industrial lines, so as to include all the neces- by hand and brain to be overcome is the pre- sary workers in each industry, whether by hand sence of a clearly-realised objective, requiring for its attainment a policy based upon these ] I, have written a good de-al about t.his problr-ru elsewhere. St.'t' especiall y my SelrOOveTnmp-nf in IndustrJl. chapter III. It. Plll(t' Aruot ts changes of strncture, administration, and atti- pamphlet, T-rade llnionism: a New Model (I,L.P., :!(U, r-ont aine a very tude. It is, for example, comparatively easy useful brief treatment of the problem. r 19G GUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF THANSITION 1!17 or bv brain, and so as, in addition, to recognise, "joint control" aims at the co-opcrul ivc within each Union, the distinctions of func- exercise of certain functions by employers and tion among the different grades and sections employed, whereas "encroaching ('onlrol" of workers, and (2), if in the Guilds a dcmoc- aims at taking certain powers right out of the racv based upon the natural unit of the employers' hands, and transferring them CO\l1- wo;'kers' industrial consciousness-the factory pletely to the organised .work~]'s. A qllil:e or workshop, or its equivalent-is required, simple instance will plainly Illustrate this this kind of democracy is not a whit less ncces- fundamental difference. " Joint control" sarv in the Trade enions of to-day. involves joint works committees, on which i wish, however, to devote the remainder of employer and employed work togcth~\': this chapter, not to a consideration of the " encroaching control" involves Trade Union internal problems of Trade Unionism, but to shop stewards' committees, which the the policy which Trade Unions need to adopt employer has to recognise, but to which if they desire to take the first steps towards the neither he nor any representative of his estabiishment of the Guild Socialist Society interests is admitted, The latter, of course, described in this book. In the last chapter, need not be quarrelling all the time with the this policy, so far as it relates to working-class employer ; but they must remain strictly inde- action "under capitalism" or "before the pendent of him. There is, indeed, between revolution." as it is variously described, was " vVhitleyism" or "joint eontrol" and briefly clu~racterised as a policy of encroach- Guild Socialist policy', or " encroaching ment. 2 control," all the difference between depend- By "encroaching control" is meant a ence and independence. It is, moreover, vital policy directed to wresting bit by bit from t~e that the shop-stewards' committees should be hands of the possessing classes the economic integral parts of the Trade Unions, an~ sl!oll!d power which they now exercise, by a steady regard themselves as the representatives, m transference of functions and rights from their their particular factories, of the wider work- nominees to representatives of the working- ing-class movement outside. class, It is not the same as " joint control," The right course, then, for the Trade with which it is sometimes confused; for Unions, at least in dealing with the private employer, is to endeavour, as far as possi]~le, 2 I have endeavoured to work ,out in. rh-tail . the. ('s£e~llials of 1 this poliC'Y a." applied to must or the principal lIldn,stw.::s, m rnv book, Chnm; to wrest and take over from him any function mal 'c>rder in /luh{siru. 1 am here onl}' restat.ing III very general term:') my main conclusions. which they feel strong enough to assume and ~------r THE POLICY OF TRANSITION 199 198 GUILD SOCIALISM accordance with plans laid by their I Inion", to exercise unaided. Such functions may be should auu at seizing all the power they enn , great 0: sm~ll; but every such exd;lsive chiefly by two closely related Illenns--first, by assump.tJOn of power represents a real gain, taking from the employer and transferring to ~Illd bn.ngs the workers a real step nearer to t.hemselves the right to appoint workshop industrial self-government, which involves the supervisors, foremen and the like, and so complete assumption of the capitalists' power making the discipline of the shop a matter, no by the representatives of producers and con- longer of imposition from without, but of self- sumer~. Of course, this gain would not be regulation by the group as a whole; and, I~lade If any function were assumed on condi- secondly, by substituting as far as possible for bons-such as those of profit-sharing-c-which the present individual relationship of the would entangle the workers in the -capitalist employer to each worker, whom he, through system. It must therefore be further laid his representatives, hires, fires, and re- down. tl~at the control assumed must be not munerates individually, a eollcctivc relation to only III Itself exclusive control, but such as to the employer of all the workers in the shop, I.Jelp the workers. towards the assumption of so that the necessary labour is in future sup- furthe.r powers, ~Vlt~out in any way entangling plied by the Union , and the workers substitute them m the capitalist order. . . their own collective regulations for " hiring Tl:is guiding principle of industrial policy and firing" for those of the employer, and, reqUlre~, of course, to be worked out in as wherever possible, enter into a collective eon- many different ways as there are industries and tract with him to cover the whole output of the sets of economic circumstances. Here I can shop, ana themselves, according to their own om~"'1 mentlO~I- a Ie~vC' of the more obvious appli- Union reguiations, apportion the work and ('a~lOns. FIrst, Just as Trade Unionism re- share out the payment received. quires reorganisation on a workshop basis the This policy as a whole has come to be known worksh~p obviously provides the most natural bv the name of Collective Contract. ClIilds- ~r~t point of the Trade Union attack; for it men do not pretend that it is equallv applicable IS l~ the workshop that the workers can most to all industries and conditions, and Lhev ndrnit easl.l~ co:neen!rate their power and take over that it has been based mainly on the conditions posItive functions, and it is there that the most which exist in the engineeri'ng and kindred in- ll:lportant outposts, though by no means the dustries. Thev hold, howcver , that it is in citadels of capitalism lie. In the workshop large measure 'eapable of applieation to all therefore the organised workers, actina in '" r 200 (iUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF TUANSITION 201 ., factory" industries, and that almost every wage-system and the estublisluucnt of Cuild type of worker can apply one or more of its Socialism. J proposals to his own case. There is at any rate The workers in the building industry, thanks no type of workers who cannot claim the' right to the special position and natu re of the in- to elect their own supervisors, to assume some dustry itself, have recently been able 10 sort of control of " hiring and firing," and, in advance considerably further than workers in a number of respects, to substitute a collective most other services are for the present able to re!1~tionof a~lthe workers employed, acting us go. The building industry, because of the a I'rade Union group, for the individual rela- acute housing shortage, occupies a position tion of each worker to the firm. especially favourable to new experiments, and Again, an obvious line of advance in all in- is, in addition, of such a nature that the element of " fixed capital" is, in relation to ?u~tries is for the Trade Unions directly to the greater part of its work, of far less msist that, HS the unemployed constitute the importance than in other large-scale industries. " reserve of labour" of the various industries If the working capital for pay, materials and a and services, the principle of " industrial main- comparatively modest amount of plant can be tenance" administered by the Trade Unions secured, large operations in the building of shall be established to cover cases both of com- working-class houses can he carried through plete unemployment and of underemployment almost without fixed capital. Taking advan- m the forms of " standing off" and "short tage of this opportunity, the building opera- tillle." In other words,the maintenance of tives of Manchester, guided by Mr. S. (;. the unemployed at thei r customarv standard Hobson, and speedily followed by those of "f lifA d,,,,,lrI h", ,." r 'r1 '1' . V.L .L.I..L'-' 0.LH_-" ..UU "-'~ .u..Jc0i:5nu;;;eu as a .le~;;ptl1nftte other centres, were able to take the step of charge upon the various industries ; and the in- actually founding Building Guilds and Guild ~ecurity of discontinuous employment which Committees. which, with their command of l~ one of the "stigmata '.' of' wage.~lavery, the necessary labour power, could undertn ke should thus be removed from the workers to build houses directly for the local nuthorj- The agitation for this change has already mad~ ties, thus eliminating altogether the building' considerable headway in the Trade 'Union trade employer and his search for profits. and worl?.' .and the establishment of the principle of. industrial maintenance" would be .:; See fo~ this oucstlon of Tncrnplnymcnt., S. G, Iloh:-"oll'l-\ <:/li/d Prin clplc9 tn ~llar and Peace, my Self-Government ilt Ind~lIdT" (c-huptr-r I\~) obviously a step towards the abolition of the Ix1 Recklt.t and Bechhofer's The Meaning of Nulio/wl (j lIi/d~ It'haph'f _ ••.. 202 GUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF TRANSITION 2013 at the same time ensuring to the Guild mem- treat the labour of H hUI113Jlbeing as a ('0111- hers full maintenance by the Guild as long as moditv that can be bought and sold on ordinarv they cont.inued of its fellO\\:ship. . It is t(!O comm'ereial principles, and they therefore in- early yet to judge whether this expemner:t wl!1 sist on full maintenance of all their IIIClllhcrs,. achieve the great practical success which It in sickness and in health, in work or out 0\ deserves; for it has to contend with the acute work. Thev refuse to make a profit; and hostilitv not onlv or the master builders, but therefore in~ist on building at cost, including also of most )()('al authorities and of t~e the maintenance of their members as a legiti- bureaucracy which are, of course, still mate factor in cost. They refuse to admit the mainlv dominated by the capitalist point of prineiple of control from olltsi.de. and abov~, view.' There is, indeed, good reason to hope and base themselves on the principle of seH- that it will surmount even these obstacles, and rrovermnent, the free association for service of thus furnish, while the capitalist system re- ~ll grades of workers by hand or hrain who arc mains in existence, a working model of a large necessarv for the work in hand. These arc part of a great industry conduet~d with?ut pn:- essential features or the Guild, and the Build- fit and under conditions of Illdustnal self- ing Guilds arc the first attempt, in face of very (fovernment. Whatever befalls it, the force real difficulties. to give them a concrete shape. ~f the example will not be lost, and oth~r But it mav be asked, if there is this simpl« workers will be able to learn from this and peaceable way of creating Guilds, without: courageous pioneering experiment in indus- any direct expropriation of anybody or a~~r trial democracy. violent: upheaval, why cannot the workers In Of Pll11r"P _ ~() one contends that. even if the ,,~l,~v ;n..:1ll~h·i(." fnll()w th" eX:Ullnlc of the nlriidi~'(;"(~;liid~I~~~e-t ~~'ith success, they can, b~;iI;lcr~~';l~d';~"a;~i~lc'l~il~~~d r~~~o'('ial r~volll- as long ~'ls they are ringed round by a hostile lion or class warfare? There are two simple capitalist environment in both industry and but definite reasons why they cannot. In the politics, renllv he" Guilds" of the kind which first place, there is hardly another inch,ls,IT" Guild Soeiali~ts desire to establish. They can that is like the building industry in rcqumrur be at best only pale foreshadowings of the practically no fixed capital for a gre[!t deal ~lr Guilds, and they will inevitably be driven. to its work, "Most industries arc earned on III some compromises in their hard struggle WIth costly factories, in mines upon the develop- capitalism, But the essential principles for ment of which large sums have been spent, m which they stand are dear. They refuse to privately-owned work-places which would ...... ------L------~~ THE POLICY OF TRANSIT I< )1\ '!O", 204 GUILD SOCIALISM their own, beeause all the mines are pri":i1 c·h· have to be transferred to the workers' O\:ned. They have to demand public OWII('!- possession before they could begin to produce ShIP, not because they want the Sl a!« In except for the owners' profit. Builders indeed manage the mines, but as the onlv wuv "i' ofte~ have work~hops, and big structural jobs getting rid of the mineowners and at k:1SI ~'eqUlrefixed capital; but ordinary house-build- clearing the path for the creation of a Mininu ing can be carried on with practically no fixed Guild. They know that State managclllcI~ capital if the eli.ent is in a position t~ pay over would be inefficient and bad both for the con- the p~lrchase-pl'lce as the work proceeds and as sumer and for the miner; and they therefore the bills for plant and materials have to be met. couple with their demand for public ownership :rhis is how the ordinary builder builds; but it a demand for democratic control. Thev can- IS not how the ordinary mincowner or not, h?wever, even under public ownership, en?'i~eering4 fi~m produces. Secondly, the hopc,.I,n fuce of bureaucratic and capitalist building operatives are able to make their offer Op~osltlOn, to proceed at once to a Mining with some hope of il.s being accepted mainly Gmld; and they have therefore to put forward because both private and State" enterprise;' a 1?roposal for joint control with the State, are. so manifestly failing to produce the houses which would at least be a step towards it. This ~dlll'h the people need, despite heavy financial is possible, whereas joint control with the inducements and one Housing Act after mipeowner is not, because under public owner- another, It should therefore be difficult for ShIP, however capitalistic the State may he local authorities in whose areas the need is direct private profiteering in the industry i~ at great and the provision scanty, to reject under least eliminated. ' present conditions the offers of the Ruilrlinc The position of the miners is almos]. iden- Guilds, at least where there is any o-;W~;~i~-~d tical with that of other workers who arc public opinion in the area to keep them demanding the "nationalisation" of thr-iI' " straight." industries. They do this, not because thcv . Other industries offer to the workers a very want or believe in State management of il;- different prosp~ct. The miners, for example, dustry, hut in order, by dearing the private when they desire to take a real step towards owner out of the way, to open the road 10 the estab~ishment of a Mining Guild, cannot Guild or workers' control. leave their employers and begin mining on It is true, of course, that nationalis.rl ion, cur-ried out under capitalism, docs nol l'l':dh l Engineering. o~ course, stands on. a different; footing from mining as well }lS from building-. For a discussion of the engineering problem see my Chao8 and Order lit Industry. chapter VIII. ' ------20(; GUILD SOCIALISM THE POLICY OF TRANSITION 207 abolish private ownership, but only changes tions that the workers will alone make possible the private property claim from a varying an equitable distribution of the national income claim on the profits of a part.icular industry to and a reasonable reorganisation of Society :t'i a fixed claim on the national resources as a a whole. The essential method of Guild So- whole. This, however, is of advantage, both eialism is the replaeement of the capitalist by because it makes the adoption of a reasonable the worker in every strategic position, whether form of control possible in the nationalised it be in industry or commerce or in those industry, and also because, by reducing the governmentnl functions which it is necessary capitalist to a mere obviously functionless to capture in order either to re-create or to bondholder or rentier, it makes far easier the destroy. subsequent annihilation of his cluim , which ceases to have even the apparent relation to social service arrogated to it at present. If the workers could secure in the vital industries what the miners demand, that is, public ownership with at least a half share in con- trol for themselves, they would have at the same time greatly strengthened their posi- tion for further onslaughts upon the capitalist system, and have weakened capitalism by depriving it, not indeed of its wealth, but of lhe eoonomic functions and powers upon which the retention of that wealth in the long run depends. In short, the real aim of the organised workers, and the keynote of Trade Union policy, must he not merely the expropriation of the capitalist, but the supersession of his economic functions and his replacement by the workers in every sphere of his economic and soc-ial power. For it is by this capture and assumption of social and economic func- f : THE INTEUNATION l\ L OUTLOOK ~O!l various countries on the Continent of Europe; but in these cases the variations arc markedly greater, and the workers in these countries are more likely to come to similar conelusions as a result of quite distinct mental processes than directly to adopt the Guild Socialist idea. CHAPTER XII In the English-speaking countries, if Guild Socialism is adopted, it will almost certainly TUE INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK be with important divergences from the pres- ent theory, suggested in part by the difference AI' the end of this exposition of the theory in material conditions and in part by national and policy of Guild Socialism, there is a ques- differences of temperament and tradition. tion which obviously suggests itself. Both the This is as it should be. Guild Socialists, theory and the policy which T have been de- who do not want any two (juilds, or any two scribing have been developed in (~reat Britain districts of one Guild, to be the same, cer- aud in direct relation to British conditions. tainly do not want all countries to be organised I ! Are they, or are they not, of more general rigidly under a uniform system. - They upplication ? In other words, is Guild So- have taken into their plan as much as they cialism put forward as a scheme claiming the could of British tradition and temperament, same validity as, for example, Socialism itself and they recognise fully that each country claims, or as the Guild system possessed in must work out its social salvation for itself and the Middle Agcs? on its own lines. But they believe that the It is hard to answer either "Yes;; or "Non essential principles on which Guild Socialism to that question. There is already evidence rests, as they provide solutions for difficulties enough that Guild Socialism is likely to have which are almost universal, have a message a widespread and largely similar appeal among wherever these difficulties exist. These prin- all the English-speaking peoples-in the ciples admit of the foundation upon them of United States of America. in Australasia and many different forms of social structure, and, in South Africa, hardly less than in the United even for their own country, Guild Socialists Kingdom. There is also a close resemblance are not foolish enough to' flatter themselves between it and movements which exist, at that they have devised in all respects that manv different stages of development, in which is best. The principles are there, to be • 208 14 be 210 GUILD SOCIALISM THE INTERNA'I'IONAL Of TTf.OOK 211 applied according to traditions and conditions solution, but at the least largely similar in- in many diverse ways, or even themselves to stincts stirring among the ;OJ:kcrs and in be substantially modified. many eases theories similar to their own in If the world is to live at peace-and not the ?ir. Naturally, they have watched eagerly merely at peace, but in a real international the mternal Russian situation, as far as " sani- relation of fellowship and co-operatIon-l~ ]S tary cordons." .and the. constant garbling of essential that the various social systems exist- news by capitalist agencies and journals allow ing within it, while retaining great national them to do so. They realise, of course, that differences should be homogeneous enough the present conduct of Russian industry is in the pri~ciples on which the~ rest to admit dominated almost wholly by the necessities of of reallv cordial common action. Between war, and that it would be absurd to look in real der;JOcracies and real tyrannies there can the present sit~ation, for the dcvelopment of I be no true co-operation, whatever interchange any clearly devised democratic industrial sys- I I of commodities and opinions there may be. tem. They realise also that the Russian Coin- lt is essential to the security and best worki:lg mu~ists, not t;-nnaturally, value the security of of a Guild Socialist Society that it should. e~lst t~ell' RevolutIOn more than they value imme- in a world which, if it is not Guild Socialist, diate attempts at stimulating democratic self- consists mainly of communities which possess, government among the imperfectly educated in one form or another, a social structure that a?d recently emancipated workers of Russia. makes for freedom. This is true more than They un?~rstand the temptation, under pres- ever to-day when the relations between na- ~nt conditions, to fall back upon " iron work- tions are necessarilv :,0 close that evil in one ing-class discipline" as easier than democracy: ~~~;';-ot--butcommunicate itself in some measure but they re.alise that this, bad as it is, may be to others. Guild Socialists look forward, then, ~mly.a passing phase of the Revolution, made to a world of free Societies, and visualise the inevitable by the military adventures and the complete establishment of (~uild Socialism cordon sanitaire of the Allied Powers. Even only in such an environment. so, they find that, despite the nominal" State This makes it a matter for them of the first Sovereign~y " of th~ Soviets, economic powers importanC'e what tendencies are developing and functions have m fact passed mainly into among the working-classes of other countl'les. the h~nds of quite distinct economic bodies, Wherever they look, they are encouraged to eo-o.rdmated by the Supreme Council of find, not merely similar' problems awaiting National Economy, which, like the lesser l r , , THE INTERNATIONAL O{)'I'LOOK 213 212 GUILD SOCIALISM bodies, consists mainly of Trade Union repre- organisations in possession of the economic sentatives. They find that what Lenin means field. Such a system would not be so far re- when he says that the Trade Unions have moved from G{lild Socialism as to make the become "State organisations" is not that closest international relationships difficult. they have been subordinate? and mad~ mere Over Europe, at present, the cry is going instruments for the execution of Soviet de- up from the "left wing" in every country crees, but that they have entered into the for" the Soviet system and the dictatorship of recognised constitution of Soc~ety, and have the proletariat." This cry is really neither assumed, to a great extent, their proper fu~c- more nor less than the cry for an early social tional place in the direction of the producbve revolution of the workers. But with it is processes of industry. Similarly, they find mingled everywhere aery, less clearly articu- that the so-called "nationalisation" of the late perhaps but unmistakeable, of the pro- Co-operative Societies, so far from destroying ducers for industrial freedom and self-govern- their power or merging them in the Soviets, ment. This cry is heard in Germany largely seems to be resulting in their reorganisation intermingled with the Communist demand, as the constitutionally recognised representa- and attempts to circumvent it play a large tives of all the consumers, exercising functions part in the German semi-capitalist ., socialisa- closely resemhling those which Guild Socialists tion" schemes, which are the equivalent of would assign to the Co-operative Movement " Whitleyism " as expressed in the mining in the future. and railway proposals of the British Govern- It is, no doubt, true that Sovietism, or ment. Everywhere not only are the workers rather Bolshevisln, under the stress of war, organising to secure power over the State: which has largely absorbed the younger men, they are also putting forward a plain demand, shows at present a marked bureaucra.hc ten- however little it may be expressed in a formal dency by no means in harmony with Guild theory, for self-government in the sphere of Socialist ideas; but the most competent ob- industry. servers agree in holding, and in stating that Two other cases at which we must glance Lenin holds, that, when once the pressure of are those of France and the United States of necessity is removed, the bureaucracy and the America. Fram-e was the original horne of' " State-like" Soviets will together atrophy " Syndicalism," a blending of Anarchist Coni- so far as economic functions are concerned, munism with Trade Llnionism from which leaving the Trade Unions and the consumers' Guild Socialists learnt much in the cady days ••...... ••••_---_ •.------214 GUILD SOCIALISM THE INTEHNATIONAL OlTTLOOK 215 of their own movement. The Svndicalist same essential principles. It is a plan for the impulse spread far and wide before' the war, public ownership and democratic control of in- and, though it did not plant itself as an or- dustry, differing from the British plans in im- ganised movement outside the Latin coun- portant respects, and above all in its retention tries, was an important factor in the industrial in a modified form of material incentives to ~wakening of ten or so years ago. In France efficient service. I myself believe this particular Itself, it seemed lo have spent its force of provision to be unfortunate anrl unnecessary; ideas just a,t the time when it was producing but I recognise all the same that the" Plumb Its. greatest effects abroad; but it has recentlv" Plan" is first cousin, if not brother, to some been shown that its impulse is still fruitful and of the proposals advocated in this book. that it is taking a new shape under the changed These are only instances chosen from a very conditions of the present time. The formula much larger number, to which additions are for which the French workers by hand and constantly being made in one country or brain, united in the Economic Council of another." I believe that the impulses and Labour, arc now contending is " industrialised reasonings which are at present moving to ac- nationalisation;' by which is meant public tion the workers in almost all the industrial ow~~rship of industry together with a system countries, are throughout sufficiently similar of joint control by the representatives of pro- to be certain, if the workers succeed in over- ducers and consumers. This proposal is not throwing capitalism, of establishing social Guild Socialism; but it is closely enough allied systems alike enough to work easily together. to it to make co-operation between two com- I am, moreover, fairly sure that nearly all munities founded, the one upon Guild Socialist these systems will in large measure embody ideas and the other on the new French Labour most of the vital principles for which Guild policy, not merely easy, but certain and in- Socialists stand, however much the actual frangible. methods of giving effect to these principles Still less is the "Plumb Plan,'" first pre- may differ from case to ease. Lam not, there- pared for the American Railroad Brother- fore, troubled by the nightmare of a Guild hoods, and subsequently endorsed by the Socialist community ringed round by hostile mmers and by other groups of American nations, or much perturbed by the difficulties workers, to be identified with Guild Socialism' which are supposed to exist in international but it also is founded on some at least of the 2 An attempt is made to record the more important ot these in the monthly article which appears in The Guildsman. under the title" Guilds at Home and Abroad." r 216 GUILD SOCIALISM trading between a Guild Socialist community and others. I see no difficulty that could not be readily overcome even in commercial rela- tions between a Guild Socialist and a capitalist community: still less do I see difficulty in mutual trading on a basis of exchange of ser- A NOTE ON BOOKS vices between the free Societies which, I be- lieve, will everywhere spring IIp on the ruins There is already quito !1 considerable literature dealing with Guild Socialism. A list of my own books bearing of capitalism. I do, of course, recognise that on the question will he found facing the title-page. The a single Guild Socialist community in a hostile most important books by other writers are the world would probably have the same struggle following :- for existence as Soviet Russia is experiencing HOBSON,S. G. NATIONAL GUILDS, edited by to-day, and for that reason, among others, we A. K ORAGE. GUILD l'lUNCIPLES IN WAR must not forget that, whether or not Guild AND PEACE. Socialism itself becomes a world-wide move- NATIONAL GUILDS AND THE ment, Guildsmen are vitally interested, not " STATE. only in its success, but in that of the cor- l'ENTY, A. J. THE HESTORATION OF TIlE responding movements, based on similar im- GILD SYSTEM, O.p. OLD WORLDS FOR NEW. pulses and ideas, which exist in other countries. " Guild Socialists, like all true Socialists, must A GUILDSMAN'S INTERPH.E~ " TATION OF HISTORY. be internationalists, and must recognise that RECKITT, M. B., and THE MEANING OF NATIONAL their concern is not simply with the social BECHHOFER; C. E. GUILDS. system of their own country, but with the RrSSELL, BERTRAND IWADS TO FHEEDOM re-creation of world Society as a federation of DE MAEZTU, RAMIRO AUTHORITY, LIBEHTY ANI> free and internally self-governing communi- FUNOTION. ties, bound together by the closest tics of TAWNEY, It. H. THE SICKNESS OF A~ AC common civic and economic concerns, com- QUISITIVE SOOIETY. ORAGE, A. R. AN ALPHABET OF EUONO mon ideas, and, perhaps above all, by that MICS. very difference and uniqueness of each which exists in the very community and without These are all by members of the Natioual UlIiI The only book devoted to a hostile criticism is;- FIELD, G. C. GUILD SOCIALISM. But see also Bernard Shaw's essay on Guild Socialism appendix to E. R. Pease's History of the Fabian Society, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb: A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. There are numerous pamphlets dealing with the INDEX subject. Most of these can be obtained from the N ational Guilds League, 39, Oursitor St., London, E.C.4. A Of course, there are very many books which, while Agricultural Co-opemtion, 130, 161, 165ff. thoy do not deal directly with Guild Socialism, have a " Guild, 11B, iso, 132, 141, 165f£. very important bearing on Guild Socialist ideas. I only " Labourers, 168ft set down here a very few of these :- " Organisation Society, Irish, 170 Agriculture, 66, 118, Ch. IX MORRIS,WILLIAM SIGNS OF OHANGE. " (Canada and United States), 173 HOPES AND FEARS FOR ART. " America, 9 BELLOC, HILAIRE THE SERVILE STATE. Apprenticeship, 75 IJENIN, N. THE STATE AND REVOLU~ Areas, 153 TION. Armed forces, 152 POSTGATE,R. W. THE BOLSHEVIK THEORY. Artists. 115 LAGARDELLE,H. LE SOCIALISME OUVRIER. Asquith, H. H., 84 KROPOTKIN, P. ~UTUAL ATD. B The list might be indefinitely prolonged into a Banking, 67, 147 bibliography of the classics of Socialism. Belloc, Hila,ire, 30 One or two more definitely specialised books should he Bolshevism, 55, 164, 172, 212 added :- " Brainworkers;" 47, 50, 192, 196 FlOGIS, J. N. CHURCHES IN THE MODERN Building Guilds, 181, 201ft. STATE. MACIvER, R. M. CO~l\'IU:NITY. C LASKI, H. J. THE PROBLEM OF SOYE~ Capital, provision of, 143ff. REIGNTY. Capitalism, 22, 66, 160, 191 Capitalist organisation, 17, 176f., 184 The Guildsman is a monthly journal devoted to the Chartism, 21, 57 propaganda of Guild Socialism. In it will be found Churches, 117 accounts of the progress of the Guild Movcm nt month Civic Services, Ch. VI, 118 by month. It is published by the National Guilds Civil Service, 140 League. 219 220 IKDEX INDEX 221 Civil War, 183f. E Class struggle, Ch. I, 121 Economic power, 15ff., 20, 180ff. Cobbett, W., 131 Education, 35, :17, 86, Oh. VI Coercion, 76, 122ff., 155ff. Elections in Guilds, 52f£. " of groups, 156ff. "Encroaching control," 196ff. Collective Utilities Councils, 87, 118, 125ff., 133 Equality of income, 72£. " Contract, 199f. Evolution, Ch. X Collectivism, 36, 40, 83f£., 120, 163 Exchange between Guilds, 68, 70 Colonies, 153 Communes, the, Ch. VII-VIII, 151 F " Town, 124ff. Farmers, 166£., 170ff. 129ff. Township, Figgis, J. N., Il7 Regional, 131ff. Finance, 67 " National, 136ff., 149, 150 " under Guild Socialism, 12Sff., 143ff. Conscription, industrial, 75 Foremen, 54, 199 Consular Service, 153 French Labour Policy, 213f. Consumers, place of, :37ff., 67, Oh. V Function as basis of social organisatiou, 3Ift, 80, 1211, 154 " ad hoc organisations of, 93f. Consumption, collective, 82£. " domestic, 8lf. G Control of industry, 9ff., 19f., 3'7£., 88ff. German Revolution, 175 Oo-operation, 17, 34,40, 83, 84ff., 186, 189ff. Gilds, see Guilds Co-operative Oouncils, 89ff., 109, Il8, 125f£., 128, 133, 141 Guild Budgets, 145 " Wholesale Society, 190 Oouncils, 69 48, 59f. Uo-operativism, 30ff., 41, 83ff. " National, functions of, Oo-ordination, 121ff., 140ff., 151 Guilds, Civic, 86, Ch. VI, 119 Craftsmanship, 45, 61, 64 " entry to, 75, 104 Industriul, Oh. III-IV, 118 Orown, the, 123 Congress of, 69ff., 142 Cultural Councils, 108ff., 119, 125ff., 133 " " relations to consumers, goff. D League, National, 163 " rolationa between, Oh. IV Decentralisation, 47ff., 61£., 64, 101 " relations to Communes, Oh. VII-VIII Democracy, 12, 14fl'., :nff., 51, 55, 08 See also Medieval, and under various industries and Dictatorship of the proletariat, 122 services Direct action, 17, 1713,181, 184 " Dirty work," 75f. Discipline, 51 H Dismissals, 56, 58£., 199 Health Councils, 108ff., 119, 125ff., 133 Distribution, 66, 68, 141 " Public, 66, Oh. VI. Doctors, Ch. VI Hobson, S. G., 201 INDEX 222 INDEX o I O'Connor, Fear-gus, 162 Independent producers, 65 " One Big Union," 195 Industrial Revolution, 2[) Output, 23 " Unionism, 36, 195 Owen, Robert, 9, 21, 25, 162 Intermediate production and consumption, 67f£., 92ft International relations, 151ff. p " Labour outlook, Ch. Xli Parliament, 14, 28ff., 148 Pay, 71ft'. J Payment by results, 23 Joint control, 197, 213 Peace of Versailles, 186 Jowett, F. W., 148 Personal relationships, 1541. " Just Price," 43, 142 Plumb Plan, 214£. Police, 128, 129 K Political action, 178ff. Kautsky, Karl, 164 Prices, 111 ff. Kropotkin, Peter, 162 Privy Council, 123 Professional associations, 104, 106 L Professions, 66, 104, 114IT. La-bour, allocation of, 144f£. Land, public ownership of, 163 Large scale production, 45f., 65 Q Quacks, 101 Law, organisation of, 149ff. Leadership, 51f£. R Lenin, N., 121, 172 Recall, 133ff. Local Government, 84ff., l06ff., 124ff., 136, 141, 182 Regional r-rganisabion, 66, 69, 131ff. Locke, John, 29 Religion, 117 Rent, 163 M Representative government, 10, 14, 31f£., 122 Management, 51ff., 57 Revolution, 22, 25, Ch. X Marxism, 30, 121 Russia, agriculture in, 164, 172 Medieval Gilds, 15, 42ff., 208 " industry in, 70, 71, 211ff., 216 Middle Ages, 29 Russian Revolution, 22, 175, 178, 184, 188 Mining, 2041. See also Bolshevism Monopoly, 66 Russian Socialists, 162 " of labour, 66 Municipal Socialism, 83 s N Saving, 145f. Scientists, 115 Nationalisation, 20M. ------224 INDEX Self-government, theory of, 12, 4Off., 50f£., 57ff., 74f., 10<1 " in the school, 103, l11tI. LIST OF NEW & Shaw, Bernard, 73 Small Holdings, 166ff. FORTHCOMING Socialist Movement, 21 Society, theory of, 12ff. Soviets, 212f. PUBLICA TIONS State, the, 28ff., 41n., 119ft, 179 " intervention, 22, 29f. Servile, 30 SPRING Socialism,see collectivism " Sovereignty, 29ff. 1921 Syndicalism, 36, 213f. T Taxation under Guilds, B6f. Teachers, S00 Education Technical Education, see Training Technicians, 50ff. Town-planning, 109 Townships, 129ff. Trade Union General Staff, 195 Trade Unionism, 17, 19, 34, 37, 181, 186, Uh. xi Training, vocational, 75, 112ff. v Transport, 67, 68. u Unemployment, 71, 200 V Village organisation, 129, 133, 165 W Wage-slavery, 15, 17ff., 99, 200 War, the, 23 111------War and peace, 151£. Wards, in towns, 126ff., 133 LEONARD PARSONS, I.T1>. Workshop organisation, 37f., 48f., 58, 198ff. 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