Chapter V: The Nature of the State, §II Having sketched in general my view of the true function of the State in a democratic community, let me endeavour to state my view more concretely, with reference to the particular theory of industrial organisation which I have in mind. To every actual social system corresponds a theory of social relations. Rousseaus conception of the General Will greatly affected Revolutionary France; the ideas of Bentham and Mill did much to mould the social legislation of industrial Great Britain. Every people, in fact, gets the social philosophy it deserves, and every social system in part throws up, and is in part thrown up by, an equivalent social theory. Guildsmen, therefore, cannot afford to neglect social theories, which are the stuff of which revolutions are made. State Sovereignty is the theoretical equivalent of Collectivist practice : Guild Socialism, in its turn, must face anew the problem of ultimate social obligation, and must work out for itself a new theory. I do not deny, as indeed, no one can deny if he desires to call himself either National Guildsman or Guild Socialist, that industry is not everything, and that industrial democracy cannot be truly national unless it is responsible in some sense to the community as a whole. What I do most emphatically deny is that this ultimate court of appeal is the State, in any sense in which the term is ordinarily understood. Of course, if by State is meant merely any ultimate body, there is no more to be said : in this sense everyone who is not an Anarchist is an advocate of State Sovereignty. But if the sovereignty of the State means the sovereignty of Parliament with its subordinate local bodies, then I maintain that it is utterly inconsistent with the principle on which Guild Socialism rests. Parliament, Municipal and County Councils, School Boards, Boards of Guardians and the like, in fact, the whole complex machine which we call the State, are territorial associations, elected on a territorial basis by all the persons recognised as citizens who live within a definite locality. One and all, they are based upon the fact of living together, even if some relics of a different system survive, or if the territorial basis has become purely nominal, as in the House of Lords. The bond between persons who live together is, in its material aspect, the fact that they are users or consumers in common of commodities and services. Parks, roads, houses, water and many other public utilities are consumed in common by all the dwellers within such and such an area. The sovereignty of the territorial association therefore means the sovereignty of the consumer a fact which is continually recognised and acclaimed by Collectivists. The Guild idea, as applied to industry, is in essence a denial of the industrial sovereignty of the organised consumers, that is, of territorial associations. It repudiates the industrial sovereignty of Parliament. But this does not mean either that it rejects the idea of communal sovereignty, or that it finds its sovereign within the Guilds themselves. Anarchism set out to destroy State Sovereignty without replacing it: Syndicalism denied the sovereignty of the State only to enthrone the General Confederation of Labour in its stead. Guild Socialists, recognising that a purely industrial sovereign is no advance on a purely political sovereign, must create a political theory to fit the Guild idea. Collectivism, we have seen, is the practical equivalent of State Sovereignty. It is not generally realised how completely Syndicalism is an inversion of Collectivism. The one asserts the absolute sovereignty of the consumers, of the territorial association: the other the sovereignty, no less absolute, of the producers, of the professional associations. Criticised for leaving out the producers, Collectivists will ask what it matters, since producers and consumers are, or would be in a Socialist Society, the same people; criticised for neglecting the consumers, Syndicalists make precisely the same reply. Guild Socialists recognise that neither the territorial nor the professional grouping is by itself enough; that certain common requirements are best fulfilled by the former and certain others by the latter; in short, that each grouping has its function and that neither is completely and universally sovereign. They see that the Guild, the grouping of all workers engaged in the same industry, is the body best fitted to execute certain purposes of a national character, and accordingly they assert that the National Guild is a necessary articulation of the national consciousness. Similarly, they recognise that all the dwellers in a single area, the consumers in common of certain services and commodities, can best further their own and the nations interest by joining together and forming a body to see to the supply of these services. They hold that the economic relationship between man and man only finds full expression when producers and consumers alike are organised when the producer and the consumer negotiate on equal terms. At the first stage, then, Guild Socialists postulate a double organisation the National Industrial Guild on the side of the producers, and the Municipal Council on the side of the consumers. And clearly above the various municipal bodies there is, on the consumers side, Parliament, the supreme territorial association. It is at this point that Guild Socialists may easily be tempted to go wrong. While everyone visualises Parliament as the supreme territorial body, are we all equally clear on the industrial side? Too many people seem to think all along of the Guilds as a multiplicity of each separate Guild as receiving its charter from Parliament, and dealing thereafter directly and finally with Parliament. That is certainly not my conception of the Guild system. Just as I visualise the smaller territorial associations unified in the great territorial association of Parliament, so I conceive that the various Guilds will be unified in a central Guild Congress, which will be the supreme industrial body, standing to the people as producers in the same relation as Parliament will stand to the people as consumers. To deny State Sovereignty in industry is not to reduce industry to a mere multiplicity of warring Guilds; it is to confront Parliament with an industrial body which has an equal claim to be representative of the nation as a whole. Neither Parliament nor the Guild Congress can claim to be ultimately sovereign: the one is the supreme territorial association, the other the supreme professional association. In the one, because it is primarily concerned with consumption, government is in the hands of the consumers; in the other, where the main business is that of production, the producers hold sway. But, as a recent critic of Guild Socialism has pointed out, this separation of functions, which is fundamental to the Guild system, does not solve the problem. The nation is in all its aspects so interdependent, production and consumption are so inextricably intertwined, that no mere abstract separation of functions can form a basis for a theory of the modern community. The problem cannot, I admit, be left where it stands: if the old Sovereign of Collectivism and the rival Sovereign of Syndicalism are alike dethroned, it remains for Guild Socialists to affirm a new and positive theory of sovereignty. I can deal with the matter here only very briefly, and solely in its industrial aspect. Where a single Guild has a quarrel with Parliament, as I conceive it may well have, surely the final decision of such a quarrel ought to rest with a body representative of all the organised consumers and all the organised producers. The ultimate sovereignty in matters industrial would seem properly to belong to some joint body representaive equally of Parliament and of the Guild Congress. Otherwise, the scales must be weighted unfairly in favour of either consumers or producers. But if, on such questions, there is an appeal from Parliament and from the Guild Congress to a body more representative than either of them, the theories of State Sovereignty and Guild Congress Sovereignty must clearly be abandoned, and we must look for our ultimate sanction to some body on which not merely all the citizens, but all the citizens in their various social activities, are represented. Functional associations must be recognised as necessary expressions of the national life, and the State must be recognised as merely a functional association elder brother, primus inter pares. The new social philosophy which this changed conception of sovereignty implies has not yet been worked out; but if Guild Socialists would avoid tripping continually over their own and other writers terminology they would do well to lose no time in discovering and formulating clearly a theory conconsistent with the Guild idea and with the social structure they set out to create. “Self-government in Industry” by G.D.H Cole, pgs. 131 – 136
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 23:22:52 +0000
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