idea . . . in Guild Socialism. Middle-class people, even
when they become Socialists, cannot get rid of the idea that the
working-class is their `inferior'; that the workers need to be
`educated,' drilled, disciplined, and generally nursed for a very
long time before they will be able to walk by themselves. The
very reverse is actually the truth. . . . It is just the plain
truth when we say that the ordinary wage-worker, of average
intelligence, is better capable of taking care of himself than the
half-educated middle-class man who wants to advise him. He
knows how to make the wheels of the world go round.''


The first pamphlet of the ``National Guilds
League'' sets forth their main principles. In industry
each factory is to be free to control its own
methods of production by means of elected managers.
The different factories in a given industry are to be
federated into a National Guild which will deal with
marketing and the general interests of the industry
as a whole. ``The State would own the means of
production as trustee for the community; the Guilds
would manage them, also as trustees for the community,
and would pay to the State a single tax or
rent. Any Guild that chose to set its own interests
above those of the community would be violating
its trust, and would have to bow to the judgment of
a tribunal equally representing the whole body of
producers and the whole body of consumers. This
Joint Committee would be the ultimate sovereign
body, the ultimate appeal court of industry. It