The attitude of the Syndicalists to Guild
Socialism is far from sympathetic. An article in ``The
Syndicalist'' for February, 1914, speaks of it in the following
terms: a Middle-class of the middle-class, with all the shortcomings
(we had almost said `stupidities') of the middle-
classes writ large across it, `Guild Socialism' stands forth
as the latest lucubration of the middle-class mind. It is a
`cool steal' of the leading ideas of Syndicalism and a deliberate
perversion of them. . . . We do protest against the `State'
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.
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