Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy

* Book: Epstein, S. A. and Maarten Prak (editors). Guilds, Innovation, and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Cambridge, 2008.

URL = https://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/87175/frontmatter/9780521887175_frontmatter.htm

Review

• http://eh.net/book_reviews/guilds-innovation-and-the-european-economy-1400-1800/

Discussion

Nathan Schneider:

"A chapter in the volume: Epstein, S. R. ”Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Preindustrial Europe.“ Journal of Economic History 58, no. 3 (September 1998) [1]:

• Argues that guilds were abolished not because they were uncompetitive but because they were abolished by decree, against the common claim that they were rent-seekers that inhibited innovation (684)

• Focuses on craft/manufacturing, not service guilds (685)

• Craft guilds bought and sold bulk products for members, stabilized volatile incomes, cheap credit, bargaining unit, political power. Were often at odds with the wealthy merchant class.

• Minimizes the role of rent-seeking in guilds, emphasizes the avoidance of free-riding on collective benefits. (687) - “Guilds were cost-sharing rather than price-fixing cartels.” (688)

• Criticizes Adam Smith's critique of the apprenticeship system (688-89), necessary to protect the investment costs from masters in the training process

• Questions the evidence that guilds stifled innovation (693)

• The innovations that the guilds promoted were of a skill-enhancing, quality-adding, capital-saving kind, as opposed to later capital-driven innovations (696)

• Success as a system for investment in human capital (701)

• The benefits and mutual monitoring of clustering enterprises in craft districts (701)

• The role of journeyman travel in diffusing innovations (703)

• guilds helped protect the incentives for inventors (703-704) "

(http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/pdf/Epstein%20Documents/19%20-%20Craft%20guilds%20apprenticeship%20and%20technological%20change.pdf)

More Information

• Guilds