Page "Libertarian socialism" Paragraph 132

In 1914, S. G. Hobson, a leading contributor to The New Age, published National Guilds: An Inquiry into the Wage System and the Way Out.

In this work, guilds were presented as an alternative to state-control of industry or conventional trade union activity.

Guilds, unlike the existing trade unions, would not confine their demands to matters of wages and conditions but would seek to obtain control of industry for the workers whom they represented.

Ultimately, industrial guilds would serve as the organs through which industry would be organised in a future socialist society.

The theory of guild socialism was developed and popularised by G. D. H. Cole who formed the National Guilds League in 1915 and published several books on guild socialism, including Self-Government in Industry ( 1917 ) and Guild Socialism Restated ( 1920 ).