roducts one with another, and the provision of capital? The nearest
approach to an answer to these questions is given by Messrs Bechhofer
and Reckitt in Chapter VIII, of the "Meaning of National Guilds." This
chapter describes "National Guilds in Being." It tells us that "each
man will be free to choose his Guild," which sounds very pleasant,
but is completely spoilt by the end of the sentence, which says "and
actual entrance will depend on the demand for labour." It sounds just
like a capitalistic factory. And then--"Labour in dirty industries,
sewaging, etc.--will probably be in the main of a temporary character,
and will be undertaken by those who are for the time unable to obtain
an entry elsewhere." Most sensible, but where is the freedom? The
Guildsman will not be able to do the work that he wants to do unless
there is a demand for that kind of labour, and in the meantime,
just like the unemployed in the days of darkness, he will be set to
cleaning the streets and flushing the drains. Messrs. Bechhofer and
Reckitt are, in fact, so sensible and practical that they abandon
altogether the freedom of the producer to produce what he likes.
"Indeed," they write, "a query often brought to confound National
Guildsmen is this: What would happen to a National Guild that began to
work wholly according to its own pleasure without regard to the other
Guilds and the rest of the community? We may reply, first, that
this spirit would be as unnatural among the Guilds as it is natural
nowadays with the present anti-communal, capitalist system of
industry" (but under the present system any one who worked without
regard to the rest of the community would very soon be in the hands of
a Receiver); "secondly, if it did arise in any Guild, this contempt
for the rest of the community would be met by the concerted action
of the other Guilds. The dependence of any individual Guild upon the
others would be necessarily so great that a recalcitrant Guild would
find itself at once in a most difficult position, and a Guild that
pressed forward demands that were generally felt by the rest of the
community to be impossible or unreasonable would soon be brought back
into line again."

[Footnote 1: "The Meaning of Industrial Freedom," page 39.]

Of course; but if so, where is the Guildsman's alleged freedom? Every
Guild and every Guildsman would have to adapt himself to the wants of
the community, just as all of us who work for our living have to d