Guild has a connotation of workmanship and craft expertise, industriousness, etc. I do like that. But there is also an existing phenomenon of various things ca

Guild has a connotation of workmanship and craft expertise, industriousness, etc. I do like that. But there is also an existing phenomenon of various things calling themselves guilds (there are various "freelancers'" guilds, e.g.), but they do not function as an economic bargaining institution at all. They're just professional organizations where people exchange contact info for networking purposes. I think there's no getting around the task at hand: rehabilitating the concept of a union of workers with shared interests and goals (even shared fraternity, if I'm gonna be super sentimental). It's capital, it's labor, it's unions. New century, same basic stuff.