Functional socialism

THE REVIVAL OF GUILD SOCIALISM 143

cipal School, in which the Fabian Society played a dominant part. It was a doctrine that taught us to rely upon the State for redress; to look to a glorified Civil Service to direct our economic life. The high reputation of the British Civil Service was, in fact, a considerable asset to the State Socialist creed. Practically, this meant bureaucratic administration: theoretically the concentration of sovereignty.

This conception was denounced by the Syndicalists on several counts: the prospect of a monstrously overgrown bureaucracy was repugnant to their democratic beliefs; the reliance upon State control, as distinct from industrial control, was regarded as merely another form of wage-oppression; finally, the politicalism predicated by State Socialism was countered by an appeal to the trade unions to fight on a strictly economic basis. Out of this agitation came “direct action” and the general strike.

By 1910, British Syndicalism—itself a curious Franco-American hybrid—had gathered considerable strength, if not in numbers at least intellectually, amongst the younger school, who derived much inspiration from the Socialist Labour Party in Scotland, from the teachings of Daniel De Leon of America and from Sorel and Berth of France. Practically, this meant a negation of political action; theoretically, a diffusion of sovereignty.

In writing National Guilds, the task I undertook was to build a bridge between these two schools of Socialist thought. As I saw it—and still see it—it was beyond question that democracy in industry is