If you are on the right, you should not be happy with the 21st century economic situation. On the one hand, multi-nationals are actively promoting leftist ideology, two famous examples being Amazon and Microsoft, who are coporate sponsors of Black Lives Matter. Whether multi-nationals truly believe in leftist ideology, or if this is simply performative activism (or, to be slightly conspiratorial, if they profit from brick-and-mortar businesses being decimated, and thus shifting the market ever more to online retail), it does not matter. At the end of the day, whatever the motive, multi-nationals are actively promoting leftist causes. Effect does not care about causality.
On the other hand, if the right cares about local community and local business, then we would naturally be averse to the market being consolidated more and more into the hands of a few. Take a stroll in your town if you get a chance, or a drive if it is more spread apart, and count how many local coffee shops there are and compare it to the number of Starbucks you see. While you are at it, count how many nationwide chain restaurants, or fast-food joints, you see. Now count up how many locally or family-owned restaurants you see. Most of you will find one side of that count much higher than the other. If the right has anything to do with a sense of home, a sense of communal belonging, then there is surely something disturbing about the present consolidation.
My libertarian readers, if I have not scared them off by now, might protest “this is simply the market selection. Nationwide chains have a lower operational cost, and a much higher supply of capital, than the local coffee shop and restaurant, so it only makes sense that they edge them out. Or look at Amazon, do you dispute that they have better prices than brick-and-mortars? Would you really prefer to drive to the store, when you could get next-day shipping for free?” I know not all libertarians would say this, but a fair number of libertarian-leaning folks would. This all looks fine on paper, until you realize that these goliaths receive so many subsidies that they are practically nationalized industries. Amazon, for instance, receives over 3.7 billion dollars of taxpayer subsides. Taxation is theft…and Amazon is the mob boss.
For long time readers, you will see the laced optimism. If Amazon, and companies like Amazon, rule the market because they have been chosen by the Federal Government to rule, then it means that, should the right take power, we could choose other than Amazon and restructure the economy when the annual budget is decided. In the past, we have called this spigot pointing. The Federal Government is like a water spigot, and whoever holds power, at the annual budget vote, can decide what plants are watered and what plants are not. What plants are watered are the plants that grow, the plants that are not wated wither. There are alternative economic arrangements possible, and all it would take to implement them would be a majority in the House and the Senate.
So then, what kind of alternative economic arrangement do we want? A good option, and we shall see in a minute why it is a good option, is a guild system. What is a guild, and what does it do? Let me block quote from Hillaire Belloc,
“The detailed function which the Guild performs, apart from its general function of mutual support and guarantee among men of a similar craft, are as follows:First, it guarantees their property. It does not destroy it as Communism would do; it does the exact contrary. It makes property permanent and sees to it that undue competition and hostile action between the various members shall not lead to the eating up of the poorer man by the richer man. Thus, of the very first activities of the Guild which we discover in full use for hundreds of years, is the making of laws for the conduct of its special trade by its own members, and the making of those laws so that each member may continue to be, within certain limits, a free members of the Guild and a free owner of his own means of livelihood. The Guild does not prevent the industrious man from flourishing, nor set a premium on idleness or inefficiency, but it makes rules whereby entrance into the Guild is only to be obtained on certain conditions, whereby there is a term of probation before a man becomes a full member, whereby those who desire to work in such and such a craft must belong to the Guild and whereby undue competition is checked. Second, the Guild has by charter from the State the right to deal with the matters which are the occupation of its members, and the right to such occupation is restricted to members of the Guild; but the State does not allow the Guild to exclude willing workers, still less to sell the privilege of membership. Entry to it must be open to all upon a sufficient test of efficiency in the trade concerned. Third, a Guild member must observe in his competition against other Guildsmen of his own craft certain limits. There are things he may do and things he may not do. There are rules for his professional conduct which he must obey under penalty of being turned out of the Guild and thereby losing his livelihood, and these rules are designed for two main objects, the good working of the craft and the maintaining of its members, so that each, with a certain minimum of industry and efficiency, is certain of a livelihood. Fourth, the Guild is self-governing within the limits of its charter, the charter granted to it by the public authority of the State.”1
In fewer words, a guild exists by charter and its purpose is to regulate its trade as well as providing various mutual aid benefits.
Why would this be better than our current arrangement. First, it treats a trade as an extended family. In so doing, competition is kept within certain bounds, tradesmen are guaranteed mutual aid, and workers are not regarded as mere pawns. If competition is kept within certain bounds, decimating a local economy for the sake of growing a single franchise would likely be seen as foul play. If tradesmen are guaranteed mutual aid, then they would no longer be reliant on the insurance monopoly or welfare. If workers are not regarded as mere pawns, it is unlikely that a worker would be fired because he objects to the Covid-19 vaccine because of ethical, or safety, concerns. Second, guilds will lean more conservative than do multi-nationals. Why? Because, if only currently, the CEOs of multinationals support leftist ideology, whereas the blue-collar worker does not. If CEOs were replaced by guild masters, who are simply guild members with managerial responsibilities, and if it is true that the guild members will be from blue-lower to middle class backgrounds, then it would not be unreasonable to assume that a guild would shy away from the leftist activism that Amazon and Microsoft, to just name two, takes part in.
Both reasons I provided for why the right should be opposed to the current economic arrangement are addressed, or are at least likely to be addressed, by a guild system.
Okay, cool, but how do we get there? Spigots! There are two answers to every question: Jesus, and spigots. If the answer is neither one of these…well, the answer is one of these.
In the next annual budget, simply introduce an amendment that gives a clear definition of a guild and prioritizes guilds in all subsequent budgets. Guilds would receive allotted subsidies before non-guild counterparts, for example. A more radical measure would be to redirect all subsidies that go to multinational corporations to guilds. The point of an amendment like this, and it can be worded any number of ways to ensure that it passes, it to signal to workers and businesses that it will become significantly more profitable to request a charter and incorporate into a guild. Year one is a set up, it is an announcement to the public. Year two is when guilds start getting spigot money. If you really want to get it going, mobilizing a 501c3, or two, for an education campaign about the amendment. Let everyone know that it is guild time.