Reinventing the Guild

Russell Sparkes has written a new paper on the reinvention of the guilds, which is now posted on the Economy site. Here is an extract:

Where do we go from here? I want to suggest that one answer may lie in a revival of mutual self-help groups, inspired by spiritual values, which we might call by their old medieval name of ‘guilds’. Of course I am not suggesting an exact return to the medieval guilds, any more than I am advocating that people should go around talking Chaucerian English. However, I do argue that the guilds provide a model answer to two major problems of modern economic and social life. The first of these is the rapid shift in the labour market from life-time employment for most people to a world of self-employment and temporary contracts. The second, partly as a consequence of the former, is the reduction in the safety net provided by the welfare state and corporate health and pension provision.

Read the whole thing. Some of you may also be interested in a recent article in the RSA Journal on the growing importance of the crafts sector and the need for a "new language" in which to talk about it, by Sir Christopher Frayling FRSA: "Tools for Survival".

Recovery of the Guilds

Is it possible that the guilds, those great symbols of medieval culture and enterprise, might be restored to life in our own time? The guilds were an association of freemen, of craftsmen working together to sustain each other, and through apprenticeship and training, to ensure the quality of what they produced. In the UK, the 2010 election installed a government committed to the rebuilding of the “Big Society” and reviving localism. A revival of the guilds would be a keystone in the political process of rebuilding mediatory agencies along with church and school. It is up to us who believe in the necessity of as many members of our society as possible being the economic masters of their fate to create a demand for the recovery of the guilds in our time.

So argues Russell Sparkes, in a "Tract for Our Time" just published in the Articles section of Second Spring Economy. Russell is one of the UK's leading authorities on the practical interface of ethics and economics. He is a Senior Fund Manager for the British Methodist Church working in the field of ethical investment, and Secretary on the Ethics of Investment for the same organization.