Restoration of the Guild System

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  • Book: THE RESTORATION OF THE GUILD SYSTEM. BY ARTHUR J. PENTY. LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN AND CO., 1906


Excerpt

PREFACE

"READERS of the following pages will probably be aware that the idea of restoring the Guild system as a solution of the problems presented by modern industrialism is to be found in the writings of John Ruskin, who put forward the proposition many years ago.

Unfortunately, however, as Ruskin failed to formulate any practical scheme showing how the Guilds could be re-established in society, the proposal has never been seriously considered by social reformers. Collectivism may be said to have stepped into the breach by offering a plausible theory for the reconstruction of society on a cooperative basis, and Ruskin’s suggestion was incontinently relegated to the reign of impractical dreams.

My reason for reviving the idea is that while I am persuaded that Collectivism is incapable of solving the social problem, the conviction is forced upon me that our only hope lies in some such direction as that foreshadowed by Ruskin, and in the following chapters I hope to show that it is not impossible to discover practical ways and means of re-establishing the Guilds in our midst.

In order to understand the full significance of the present proposals, they should be considered in conjunction with the theory put forward by Mr. Edward Carpenter in Civilization, Its Cause and Cure. Indeed, the present volume aims at forging the links required to connect the theory there enunciated with practical politics.

Two other books which have an important bearing on the subject, and might be read with advantage, are Carlyle’s Past and Present and Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy."