Lost Highway Times...Paths in Oblivion

Guilds and self management.

Strange thing; if you really look at it, before capitalism, virtually every society in the world had workers' self management. This came about because every non-western society which was developed had a division between the distributers and traders, who were organized into merchant associations, and the people who made the stuff that they sold, who were organized into guilds. They coexisted, and, didn't succeed in taking each other over. You can find references to guilds everywhere from Western Europe to China, with Central Asia and the Middle East there in between, to India, to Indonesia and Southeast Asia. And to Africa to as well. The people who produced stuff were self managing and separate from the people who traded the stuff. Period. Imperial China recognized this system. Rome recognized this system. They had trade unions in the Roman Empire. Truly. The Persian dominated states of Central Asia, as well as Persia itself, recognized this system, even though Persia, like Imperial China, was an absolute monarchy.

But in Europe the traders were able to take over the producers and force them to produce for them, creating the capitalist factory, or at least the precursor to it.

And, to forestall any criticism, no, this had nothing to do with people who were Jewish.

This may sound sort of unnecessary but there are those who, because they ARE racist and anti-semitic, read into any sort of thing about the conflict between the producers and the distributers the idea that behind it is really the conflict between Jews and Gentiles...so I'm nipping that in the bud right now. If you want to know why see the articles on what this blog believes on the sidebar.

It actually happened via dutch and north german traders, with the english following, but that's taking us far afield.

The point is that workers' self management in production has been the norm for the vast majority of human history and being deprived of self management is the abberation.

Lets try to correct that, ok?