Guild Socialism and the Industrial Future

Abstract

T HIS passage was quoted by Mr. Cole in his Social Theory, forerunner with Self-Government in Industry of his present statement of Guild Socialism.' He felt, he said, that it was profoundly true. The dream that is dying is obviously the old laissez-faire industrialism; the one that is coming to birth is that view of future economic institutions which is peculiar to the Guild Socialists. In a real sense Mr. Cole has made himself a special prophet. We have a right to ask with what reason. This particular statement of the Guild-Socialist belief is attractive in its reasonableness, in its experimental attitude toward the actual machinery of the future economic system, and in its lack of very dogmatic schematization within its own set limits. Of course, Mr. Cole would not have us ranging into the uncharted regions beyond his assumptions; but within these, we are given to understand, we are relatively free to make suggestions. Whatever criticisms of Mr. Cole's work are to be made, have to be qualified, then, by saying that he is indefinite where definition would presume upon individual intelligence; and that where he is precise in prophecy he is equally clear in saying that if we do not like his suggestions, we are free to look for others, provided the essential aims are gained. Mutable small arrangements are not worth bickering about; to Mr. Cole they seem possible in a certain fashion which he presents but, one gathers, there is no point in all the intricate ar-