Guild Socialism Reconsidered

sketch of Guild Socialism "The Factory to the Workers, the Mine to the Miners -- and the dust to the dustmen, I suppose." -- Beatrice Webb What, then, is essential to Guild Socialism? Certainly one essential is representative democracy, but representative democracy in a rather specific form: functional pluralism. "It follows that there must be, in the Society,as many separately elected groups of representatives as there are distinct essential groups of functions to be …

…by "interest," material interest is most usually meant. While the commune may be described as a state, its functions are the minimal ones of coordination and arbitration among the major functional groups in society, and thus it may be thought of as a natural and minimal state. Nevertheless the Guild Socialist society is a socialist society if, with W. A.Lewis, (p. viii) we consider democracy and the classless society as the essentials of socialism.