Guild socialism

Guild socialism is an outgrowth of British Fabian socialism that emerged in the second decade of the twentieth century, gained considerable support after World War I and then faded into obscurity. It proposed the public ownership of all industries and the separate management of each industry by its workers, organized into a national guild or labor union. Its sponsors considered it an ideal social system which would eliminate "unearned income" and extend the principles of political democracy into the industrial realm. It was primarily an impractical reaction of some "democratic socialists" to the apparent dangers of an all powerful government, as noted in the Germany of the Hohenzollerns and later in the Soviet Union.