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The Columbia University Libraries reserve the right to refuse to accept a copying order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. Author: Taylor, George Robert Stirling Title: The guild state Place: New York Date: [1919] MASTER NEGATIVE * COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DIVISION BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET ORIGINAL MATERIAL AS FILMED - EXISTING BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD WfT" m II I m o I Taylor, George Robert Stirling. The guild state ; its principles and possibilities, by G. R Stirling Taylor. Loirdmr. #r:A:ttcii*-UTndn ltd. [19i^] ^ ^ rev/ Yor^:. Maonillan rJ-9^^0i 153 p. 19™. 1. Gild socialism. I. Title. Library of Congress 20-8272 HD6479.T3 [29(1, RESTRICTIONS ON USE: TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: i^kz^ REDUCTION RATIO: /^ -/ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (^A:^ IB IIB DATE FILMED: ^-/^'JV INITIALS: /Cc/^ TRACKING # : 41 S H 0^-^? FILMED BY PRESERVATION RESOURCES. 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April 1920 « • • • * • i {i4// ri^/r/s teserved) the social barometer the needle shows J ^^ threatening signs of finding the markings on ■ ^ the dial too few to register its lowest intentions. < There is consequently much hurrying to and fro Q in the world — like a camp scuttling to tighten the <■ 140 THE GUILD STATE ■ I It 1 modern man will be content. He will be in his Paradise. But, by the very nature of his creed, no sooner has he arrived in one Paradise than it is time to conquer another. Like Alexander, he does not rejoice for what he has won; but weeps because there is nothing beyond. He wants to conquer and to rule everybody and everything : and, above all else, he must be quick. His trusted philosopher is the newspaper leader writer, that feverish mind that is lured to its folly by the latest evening telegram. Now the real news of the world cannot be discovered in a telegram; and wisdom can rarely be gleaned from it in time for the newspaper train. Wisdom is not the fancy of to-day or the fashion of to-morrow. But the modern man does not ask for wisdom ; he wants opinion poured down his throat as quickly and as noisily as possible. So the daily newspaper has become the very expression of the intellect of this extraordinary by-product of humanity. This desire for speed is but the expression of the modern man's determination to value everything in terms of quantity instead of quality. If he can have two of anything, he feels himself infinitely better than if he only has one. He is unfortunately limited by one mouth, one stomach, by twenty -four hours to the day, and other ridiculous failings of a Nature that is so care- lessly unambitious. But the modern man is not one to be dictated to by mere Nature. His GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE Ul whole life is one continual defiance of every law of it. He thinks Chicago is so many times better than Canterbury because there are so many times more people in it; and so many multiple times the possibility of making money in it. He thinks one nation is richer than another because its exports and imports are bigger. He thinks the British Empire is greater than the land of the Plantagenets because its square mileage has increased. He thinks a citizen of the United States must feel superior to the inhabi- tants of Denmark because it is possible to travel in a railway train longer in the States before reaching the boundary. He thinks that Mr. Jay Gould and Mr. Carnegie are more successful men than George Meredith or Robert Grosseteste because they have larger banking accounts. In his more genial moments he talks generously of the services of the clowns and singers and artists who amuse his moments of leisure : he is kind enough to murmur proverbs concerning the happinesses and virtues of contentment and poverty — ^but he doesn't really mean it; it is only a creed for those who have not wit enough to make a real success. In short, it is a Philo- sophy of Multiples; there is one test for every- thing — ^the multiplication table. That is his creed. His questions can only be answered in terms of quantity, of space, of velocity. He prefers the last part of the multiplication table to the beginning, for it talks about bigger numbers. U2 THE GUILD STATE Now, the remarkable fact is that in the news- paper offices and government departments and business houses, where they imagine they know all the latest news, they really believe that this modern monstrosity is the normal man of to-day. They conceive of man as a heroic creature of energy who is continually asserting himself ; ever restless to take the next step in human progress ; always searching for something new, and imagining that the new is better than the old; always desiring to rule his fellows and to interfere with their lives as much as possible — for that is their conception of a great man. It is an astounding blunder in judgment. It no more corresponds to the facts of life than when a man in a moment of spiritual emotion sees two moons. The vast majority of the people of this world have no resemblance to this human motor-bus, eternally rushing along the highways, smothered in the dust of its own energy, a thing of tumultuous noise and virile determina- tion to get to its journey's end at all costs to itself or others. The leader-writer is deceived because he is himself of this weird mechanical creation, and likewise his friends. But it is the same sort of mistake that a duke would make if he imagined that all the other people in the world were dukes, with the corresponding number of duchesses. It is the same mistake that the orthodox historians make when they imagine that history has been made by politicians. GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 143 The normal man has no resemblance what- soever to a motor-bus. He is sane. He is exceedingly stable, and if he met his ancestors of the Middle Ages, or even of Greece and Rome, they would have much in common to discuss. There would be all those innumerable simple facts which make, up the main life of the normal man. They would be more concerned with their daily occupations than with rushing along — either materially or mentally — somewhere else or no- where in particular. Normal life is rest, not motion; quiet, not tumult; acceptance of what arrives at one's door, rather than the seeking of what is not there. The normal man lacks ambition; he is not anxious to make a great fortune, or to conquer, or to govern other people. It may be intellectual slackness or physical laziness, or, more probably, merely good taste and decent manners. Whatever may be the reason, he does not care to interfere with his neighbours. He does not want to govern them; and he dislikes being governed by them. Perhaps that is the most fundamental civic quality of the average human being; this inability or disinclination to take a very active part in the business of governing. The politician may be very anxious to give the common people elaborate political constitutions that will confer on them many votes and many offices. But the normal man, rightly or wrongly, has never got very excited about his gifts. He will neither take a very great interest in the U4 THE GUILD STATE politician nor his programmes. The poHticians, of course, have assumed that this was entirely owing to lack of education on the part of the common man; and great endeavours have been made to arouse him to more intellectual activity. But when one thinks over the matter more care- fully, the suspicion is aroused that this placid ignoring of the political orator and his bag of tricks, may be just one of those things that prove the sane wisdom of the common man. It may be his thoughtful judgment — the clinging traditions of his ancestral memory — that he got on fairly well in the past without either politician or political programmes, and that all those that he has voted for seem, on consideration, to have done him no particular good, and some- times a great deal of harm. Anyhow, rightly or wrongly, the ordinary man as often as not will go to the poll only if he is carried there. He is not a political animal. His ambition is of very modest proportion ; desiring very moderate things, little inclined to self-assertion, peaceful; aroused to action only by the most persistent encouragement, provoked to resistance only by the most persistent .tyranny. The freaks of humanity may demand a grouse moor in Scotland, a villa on the Riviera, a box at the Opera, and dinner at the Ritz . The normal man is wonderfully content mth very much less. Being very sane, and therefore unlike the modern man, he recognizes the limitations of facts. If everybody drank GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 145 the wines of Tokay, they could not last a day ; the moors of Scotland would soon be surging with sportsmen and bare of grouse; the theatres would be all boxes, and a box in the galkry would be a quibble about terms. In short, the world would only be possible if the normal man kept his head and refused to become an abnormal freak. It is one of the great traditions of man to keep his head and heart steady; for without it the earth would become a reckless impos- sibiHty. If all succeeded, if all won fame, then both fame and success would lose their meaning. It would perhaps be possible to take in each other's washing — but each other's fame might become exceedingly boring. But if the sane man has small ambition for greatness, he has a commendable desire to do his daily job with credit to himself. Man is by instinct a craftsman who likes his work. There was no strong economic coercive pressure in the Middle Ages; yet the craftsmen of that day built a thousand beautiful churches, and made ten thousand delightful wares. They were things that could only be done in the spirit of delight in doing them. But it is written in the history of the world that man in his natural condition is not content to get merely a bare living : he must always be throwing into his work an infinity of turns and twirls just because it delights him to do so ; while the appeal to his sense of honesty and efficiency is generally certain of a due response. Man was an artist by nature 10 146 THE GUILD STATE j GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 14? long before there were academy schools or technical colleges to teach him by classes. One of the pathetic struggles of to-day is to recover, by vast expenditure of public money on education, some of the artistic skill which the apprentice of the mediaeval days could pick up for the asking in every workshop. The deep traditions of the world would seem to have taught the normal man what is worth the doing and what is not worth it : and we find him' willing, or even eager, to do his daily work if it is worthy of a decent creature. But he is very reluctant to trouble about all those matters which come under the head of political affairs. There are the two types before us in very brief summary. The system of life which produces one must inevitably crush out the other. We must make up our mind which of the two w^ will have ; for we cannot have both : it would be like placing a terrier and a rabbit in the same cage. At least it is certain that the Guild State would threaten the destruction of the modern man. No one can suppose that this leader-writer's ideal could exist for long in an educated demo- cracy; he would probably be expelled under one of the sanitary regulations; or somebody might lose his temper and hit him with an axe. But it must be seriously asked whether this modern man is either ideal, or necessary, or even possible as a permanent social institution. We have had it continually dunned into our ears that it is this striving, competitive, ambi- 1 f M A tious, self-assertive and noisy person who has made the progress of the world. But whither is this "progress" taking us? Quite clearly (if we are allowed to judge by results) it means more factories; more machines; more great towns and less country; more smoke, less sun; the workman will become more and more an automaton, a part of the machine; great art is to give place to great production; quantity of wealth is to be considered before its quality ; man is to be turned into a scientific instrument for the production of goods; and the man who produces (or rather seizes) the most of them is to rule all the others who get less ; government is to be performed by a class of trained bureau- crats who gather themselves into great capital cities as far away from popular control as possible; the individuality of the common man is to be reduced to a convenient standard ; while the individuality of the nations will gradually disappear as they are gathered together into great States. Such seems to be the picture of this "progress," but, indeed, it is blurred; it half vanishes in the noise and dust and speed of its accomplishment. It is like a cinema that is working too fast. But who are these who dictate the standards of life? We have sat silent too long while news^ paper proprietors and university dugouts have splattered decent people with the grease of their ideal world, bred in their coal pits and factory yards. They have done their best to turn a 148 THE GUILD STATE beautiful earth into a noisy pigsty; and they have the cool audacity to expound it as a triumph of wisdom and taste. It is the dream of a company promoter; and they ask us to believe that it has the approval of science and philosophy. In the face of all the fact^ they dare to claim that their modern system is a '* progress " from the Middle Ages. Their argument is a continuous evasion of the truth. There is room for a seasoned and well- balanced historian to work out with unimpeach- able candour whether the modern society is really better than the old. He will have to consider, in historic detail, whether this much-belauded ** energy '* has not done as much harm as good; whether, if all men were ** energetic," the world would be a Paradise or a Bear Pit. Think of him calmly and searchingly : is this really the highest type of man? It is not a question for rhetoric, but for careful balancing of the facts. This historian would have to tell us if the people of England are really so much happier because their fathers had the energy to conquer an empire; or whether the whole idea of empire is merely a clever trick of the plutocrats and government officials who get their profits and salaries out of it. Even from their point of view, is it not a dangerous game? Rome was ruined by building an empire. If this modem ideal of energy and fierce striving is a good thing, then our late enemies, the Germans, should command our unmitigated respect. GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE U9 This inquiring historian may emerge from his study with many astounding conclusions which are not yet considered orthodox in historical circles. He may decide, in cold blood and on the facts, that modern society has more noise than reason in its composition. On close examination it may be found that there is something essentially vulgar and immoral in this desire to rule other people. The normal man has not this craving; it is not merely that he lacks the energy, he generally also lacks the desire. There is an instinctive delicacy in the common mind which holds it back from the wish to coerce one's neighbours, whether it be for their good or ill. The historian may decide that government has in the main been the trade of an essentially vicious class; vicious, not in the sense of being personally dishonest or corrupt, but because it is fundamentally depraved to govern even well. The Prussian officer was such a crude type of the governing class that every one beyond reach of his sword could only shake with laughter. . He was invented by the Fates for the enjoyment of music-halls. But he was not the most vicious part of German government. The real danger was the efficient expert official. It sounded so reasonable to hold that a carefully trained class of administrators could most easily provide us with the best of governments in the best of worlds. Whether the German people are now satisfied that this perfect theory has worked out as perfectly in practice, is an interesting ques- 150 THE GUILD STATE tion. There are some people who think that what man must discover is the right kind of government. The strictly impartial historian may conclude that sometimes the best of governments have been the worst ; because they have always meant so much the more of what is always bad. The German system of highly centralized and highly skilled government has proved disastrous just because it succeeded in doing the thing more efficiently than it had ever been done before in the history of the world. The danger of it was not that it failed, but that it succeeded. It turned the German people into a herd of well-governed sheep and moral degenerates; who could assassinate their neigh- bours, and think they were lofty-souled patriots when they drove in the bayonet. The real heart of the Guild idea is not a mere rearrangement of the social machinery; but an attempt to express a rearrangement of human ideals. It does not seek ideals that are merely pious hopes, but rather those that are the deepest traditions of the human race. It is the modern man who founds his system on sentiments ; it is the guildsman who is scien- tific and practical. He does not desire a social system based on the weaknesses of the few; but one which befits the strength of the many. Above all he does not judge that the final test of human society is whether it is best arranged for the greatest output of coal, or iron, or farthing newspapers : he does not value it by 1 ( GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 151 the speed of its trains or the size of its empires. He stubbornly insists that the supreme test of human society is Man; that he is the central pivot on which all must revolve. When he is told that a factory system is necessary because that is the quickest way of producing boots or tin cans, he asks the simple question : Is it the quickest way of producing a sane man? He is somewhat tired of trying political remedies for the cure of human ills. He knows that when the Roman Republic became corrupt men sought to cure it by making it an Empire; and when the Stuart kings of England grew tyrannical, men fled to America and founded a Republic; but neither Rome nor America gained much more liberty than if all had remained untouched. So the guildsman turns to more fundamental factors than poUtical constitutions. He turns to a time when man was mainly a craftsman and a democrat, who had not wasted many hours on politicians and governors. There is a moment when patience with our opponents is no longer a virtue. We have sat submissive too long while the salesmen of these modern ideals have dogmatically announced their wares. There is a moment when it is time to say quite curtly that we have listened enough to this insolent blufl" — for half this defence of the Modem State is bluff and nothing else. When we are offered for our homage a society which gives us Sir Edward Carson instead of Becket, and Comic Cuts instead of illi;- 152 THE GUILD STATE miiiated manuscripts; a society which has built Liverpool and New York and destroyed Ypres and Reims; which has set up plutocracy in black coats instead of aristocrats, who at least knew how to dress; which has given us millionaires instead of the millennium, and factory hands and smoke for a peasantry who at least could see the sun; when, in short, we are offered unmitigated nonsense for something that at least had romance and beauty and; an unaffected common sense; then it is time to show our opponents the door and suggest the nearest gate-post aS a more suitable companion for their confidences. Tolerance is a very great gift, a very great virtue; but when men say they are talking sense when they are flying in the face of all the facts, then it is time to show a little human dignity. Our opponents imagine that they have answered us with, the crushing phrase : *' We cannot go back to the Middle Ages." It would be equally pertinent to reply that the charge of the Light Brigade would be a pastime for nurserymaids compared with the superb heroism of riding much farther with the present system. However, we do not desire to return. We merely wish to cling to the fundamental facts of human nature, rather than to flirt with some idle fancies that flitted through the heads of a few economists and politicians who mistook statutes and ballot- boxes for the wisdom of mankind. We are not the sentimentalists : it is the man who says GUILDSMAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE 153 that Birmingham is a greater city than Bruges who is giddy with sentiment — and regardless of facts. But if he really means that he does not want to return to Bruges even if he could, then we can touch ground in the debate. We are not quarrelling about methods; we are struggling over the root principles of human ex- istence. It is not a matter of social machinery; it is a question of morals, of taste, of elemental sanity. We do not pretend that the Guild system will give the ** modern " man what he is seeking. At least we pray most devoutly that it will not; for if it does, it will be but another of those unkind tricks by which a mysterious fate has so often made sport of Mankind. < • • • • • • J , •••••• « • • • • * • • • • • • » » « » t Printed in Great Britain by (JNWTN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE QRESHAM PRESS, WOKINO AND LONUQ^' A Guildsman's Interpretation of History "Demy 8 By a. J. PENTY vo. lis, 6d. net. This book attempts to interpret the historical significance of the Guild Movement from the point of view of one who believes it foreshadows * '■?;"r" *P .,?ie?.'«val civilization. The author believes that as our capitalist civilization is breaking up, such a return is inevitable, inasmuch as there are only two types finally of society-the capitalists of Greece and Kome and the modern world, where currency is unregulated and the ruined civilization of Mediaeval Europe and Asia, where it was regulated by means of the Just Price. Incidentally, the book aims at tevrkVo'virnf "''' ''""^"°" °' "'^^^^y *^^* '' ^^^-^ ^»^« Co-operation and the Future of Industry b^ Leonard s. woolf ^f' ^^0. Second Edition rj, „gf " A book of great immediate and practical importance. Every one who desires industrial reconstruction would do well to master ii"— Herald. A :tvevy on Capital By F. W. PETHICK,. LAWRENCE Cr. 8vo. i « Tniitr> EoiTioi^ : C/otA, 2/. 6J. net. "The best statement, set forth in cold, clear, exact argument with statistical evidence, yet made of t^c cs^^:'— Manchester Guardian. . . ■ • The Politics of the Proletariat By MALCOLM QUIN ^'"^y ^^^- S^iJ Paper Covers, 5,. ;,,/. " His aims are noble. He is a fine sonV— Justice. " A man of acute mind. "—Westminster Gazette. ^BIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES s due on the daU indicated below, or at the ^f^nite period after the ds -f borrowing, as ary rules or by spec- -ment with COLUMBIA UNIV lllillll 0032047789 ERSITY OootS LJ FEBl*«9^ \ ,,„ ^ WOV 4 1958 FEB 7 1933 END OF TITLE