W. are tending to bear fruit.[35] This movement is as
yet in its infancy and has no great hold upon the rank
and file, but it is being ably advocated by a group
of young men, and is rapidly gaining ground among
those who will form Labor opinion in years to come.
The power of the State has been so much increased
during the war that those who naturally dislike
things as they are, find it more and more difficult to
believe that State omnipotence can be the road to the
millennium. Guild Socialists aim at autonomy in
industry, with consequent curtailment, but not abolition,
of the power of the State. The system which
they advocate is, I believe, the best hitherto proposed,
and the one most likely to secure liberty without
the constant appeals to violence which are to be
feared under a purely Anarchist regime.
[35] The ideas of Guild Socialism were first set forth in
``National Guilds,'' edited by A. R. Orage (Bell & Sons, 1914),
and in Cole's ``World of Labour'' (Bell & Sons), first published
in 1913. Cole's ``Self-Government in Industry'' (Bell &
Sons, 1917) and Rickett & Bechhofer's ``The Meaning of
National Guilds'' (Palmer & Hayward, 1918) should also be
read, as well as various pamphlets published by the National
Guilds League.
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