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The funny thing about all those guilds, as those were necessary to create something of a non-peasant class in the cities, is that zhey were absolutely not free
by hef19898 3y ago
The funny thing about all those guilds, as those were necessary to create something of a non-peasant class in the cities, is that zhey were absolutely not free market. They fixed prices, limited output, set salaries, limuted the number of workshops. In a sense, they were as much labor union as they were oligopols.
What we consider free market came with the industrial revolution and colonialism and the national companies created to exploit those colonies. The first signs of that can be traced to the early renessaince era, with Italian merchant princes, the Fugger and the Hanse. Those were still subserviant to nobility and aristocratic rule so, while the industrial revolution capitalists and colonial companies were much less so.
Fun fact: The workers building cathedrals were fully unionized, with all the benefits that's with that: limited work hours and days, health care, social security.
- WalterBright 3y agoThe places where the guilds had more power were less prosperous.
- hef19898 3y agoThe places were the guilds had power were the prosperous places up until the early modern age and the rise of manufacturing in the run up to the industrial revolution: medieval towns and cities, added benefits if those towns had noble rulers that allowed, for various reasons, a high degree of independence. Examples include the Hanseatic League (run by the various merchant guilds as a de-facto state) ans every single city in what now is Germany or Austria. Up to the point the rural nobles constabtly feuded with those cities. You saidb t yourself, the textile manufacturer guolds of the low countries contributed a lot to the prosperity of those places, same for England. And for a long time, the trade between those cities was run by the Hanseatic League (which were arguable a lot closer to modern day capitalism than a local crafts guild).