Professional organizations replicate guild structure and operation. Though most guilds died off by the middle of the nineteenth century, quasi-guilds persist today, primarily in the fields of law, medicine, engineering, and academia. Paralleling or soon after the fall of guilds in Britain and in the United States professional associations began to form. In the US, a number of interested parties sought to emulate the model of apprenticeship which European guilds of the Middle Ages had honed to achieve their ends of establishing exclusivity in trades as well as the English concept of a gentleman which had come to be associated with higher income and craftsmanship Licensing and accreditation practices which typically result from the lobbying of
professional associations constitute the modern equivalent of a 'guild-privilege', albeit in contrast to guilds of the Middle Ages which held a letters patent which explicitly granted them monopolies on the provision of services, today's quasi-guild privileges are subtler, more complex, and less
directly restrictive to consumers in their nature. Nevertheless, it can be argued quasi-guild privileges are in many cases designed not just to serve some notion of public good, but to facilitate the establishing and maintaining of exclusivity in a field of work. There are often subtle dichotomies present in attempting to answer the question of whether modern licensing and accreditation practices are intended to serve the public good, however it be defined. For medieval guilds this dichotomy is exemplified by differing explanations of the same phenomena; of limiting work hours among guild members.
Sheilagh Ogilvie argues that this was intended to mitigate competition among guild members, In modern times, while licensing practices are usually argued to in some way protect members of the public (e.g. by ensuring quality standards), it usually can also be argued that these practices have been engineered to limit the number of 'outsiders' who gain entrance to a given field. As argued by
Paul Starr and
Ronald Hamowy, both of whose focus is on the development of medicine in the United States, the tying of medical licensing practices to universities was a process intended to do more than protect the public from 'quackery', but was engineered to be unnecessarily prolonged, inefficient, and a costly process so as to deter 'outsiders' from getting into the field, thereby enhancing the prestige and earning power of medical professionals. The university system in general continues to serve as a basis upon which modern quasi-guilds operate in the form of professionalism. 'Universitas' in the Middle Ages meant a society of masters who had the capacity for self-governance, and this term was adopted by students and teachers who came together in the twelfth century to form scholars guilds. Though guilds mostly died off by the middle of the nineteenth century, the scholars guild persisted due to its peripheral nature to an industrialized economy. In the words of Elliot Krause,The university and scholars' guilds held onto their power over membership, training, and workplace because early capitalism was not interested in it (there was no product that the capitalist wished to produce)...the cultural prestige of knowledge itself helped keep the scholars' guild and the university alive while all other guilds failed. - Elliot Krause,
The Death of Guilds (1996)Though in theory anyone can start a college, the 'privilege' in this case is the linking of federal aid to accreditation. While accreditation of a university is entirely optional, attending an accredited university is a prerequisite to receiving federal aid, and this has a powerful influence on limiting consumer options in the field of education as it provides a mechanism to limit entrepreneurial 'outsiders' from entering the field of education. George Leef and Roxana Burris study the accreditation system for which they observe is 'highly collegial' and potentially bias in the fact that accreditation review is performed by members of schools who will in turn be reviewed by many of the same people who they have reviewed. They further question the effectiveness of the methods involved in accreditation,Although accreditation is usually justified as a means of giving students and parents an assurance of educational quality, it is important to note that the accreditors do not endeavor to assess the quality of individual programs or departments.... The accreditation system is not based on an evaluation of the results of an institution, but rather upon an evaluation of its inputs and processes. If the inputs and processes look good, acceptable educational quality is assumed. It is as if an organization decided which automobiles would be allowed to be sold by checking to make sure that each car model had tires, doors, an engine and so forth and had been assembled by workers with proper training—but without actually driving any cars - George C. Leef and Roxana D. Burris,
Can College Accreditation Live Up To Its Promise?Taken in the context of guilds, it can be argued that the purpose of accreditation is to provide a mechanism for members of the scholars guild to protect itself, both by limiting outsiders from entering the field and by enforcing established norms onto one another. Contriving means to limit the number of outsiders who gain an entrance to a field (exclusivity) and to enforce work norms among members were both distinguishing feature of guilds in the Middle Ages. The
open-source-software movement has from time to time explored a guild-like structure to unite against competition from
Microsoft, e.g.
Advogato assigns journeyer and master ranks to those committing to work only or mostly on free software.
Patents loosely serve as a form of guild privilege in that they restrict potential newcomers to a field of service. The idea of a patent being applied to intangibles such as
intellectual property has been called to question by various authors. In
Capital and Ideology (2019) Thomas Piketty questions the validity of patents being granted to agricultural corporations who claim to have 'invented' certain GMO seeds. According to Piketty, the falsity of such claims is that the specific breakthrough which allowed for the development of these GMO seeds was in fact only the outcome of generations of
public investment in education and research.
International examples Europe In many European countries, guilds have experienced a revival as local trade organizations for craftsmen, primarily in traditional skills. They may function as forums for developing competence and are often the local units of a national employer's organisation. In the
City of London, the medieval guilds survive as
livery companies, all of which play a ceremonial role in the city's many customs as well as having charitable roles. The City of London livery companies maintain strong links with their respective trade, craft or profession, some still retain regulatory, inspection or enforcement roles. The senior members of the City of London Livery Companies (known as liverymen) elect the sheriffs and approve the candidates for the office of Lord Mayor of London. Guilds also survive in many other towns and cities the UK including in
Preston, Lancashire, as the
Preston Guild Merchant where among other celebrations descendants of burgesses are still admitted into membership. With the City of London livery companies, the UK has over 300 extant guilds and growing. In 1878, the London livery companies established the
City and Guilds of London Institute the forerunner of the engineering school (still called City and Guilds College) at
Imperial College London. The aim of the City and Guilds of London Institute was the advancement of technical education. "City and Guilds" operates as an examining and accreditation body for vocational, managerial and engineering qualifications from entry-level craft and trade skills up to post-doctoral achievement. A separate organisation, the
City and Guilds of London Art School has also close ties with the London livery companies and is involved in the training of master craftworkers in stone and wood carving, as well as fine artists. In
Germany, there are no longer any
Zünfte (or
Gilden – the terms used were rather different from town to town), nor any restriction of a craft to a privileged corporation. However, guilds continue to exist under another old name,
Innungen, as private associations with membership limited to practitioners of particular trades or activities. These associations are corporations under public law, although membership is voluntary; the president normally comes from the ranks of master-craftsmen and is called
Obermeister ("master-in-chief"). Journeymen elect their own representative bodies, with their president having the traditional title of
Altgesell (senior journeyman). There are also "craft chambers" (
Handwerkskammern), which have less resemblance to ancient guilds in that they are organized for all crafts in a certain region, not just one. Membership is mandatory, and they serve to establish self-governance of the crafts.
India India's guilds include the Students Guild, Indian Engineers Guild, and the Safety Guild. Other professional associations include the Indian Medical Association, Indian Engineers, Indian Dental Association, United Nurses Association, etc. Most of them have names containing Union, Association or Society.
North America In the
United States guilds exist in several fields. Often, they are better characterized as
labor unions — for example,
The Newspaper Guild is a labor union for journalists and other newspaper workers, with over 30,000 members in North America. In the film and television industry, guild membership is generally a prerequisite for working on major productions in certain capacities. The
Screen Actors Guild,
Directors Guild of America,
Writers Guild of America, East,
Writers Guild of America, West and other profession-specific guilds have the ability to exercise strong control in the
cinema of the United States as a result of a rigid system of
intellectual-property rights and a history of power-brokers also holding guild membership (e.g.,
DreamWorks Pictures founder
Steven Spielberg is a DGA member). These guilds maintain their own contracts with production companies to ensure a certain number of their members are hired for roles in each film or television production, and that their members are paid a minimum of guild "scale," along with other labor protections. These guilds set high standards for membership, and exclude professional actors, writers, etc. who do not abide by the strict rules for competing within the film and television industry in the US. Real-estate brokerage offers an example of a modern American guild system. Signs of guild behavior in real-estate brokerage include: standard pricing (6% of the home price), strong affiliation among all practitioners, self-regulation (see
National Association of Realtors), strong cultural identity (the Realtor brand), little price variation with quality differences, and traditional methods in use by all practitioners. In September 2005 the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors, challenging NAR practices that (the DOJ asserted) prevent competition from practitioners who use different methods. The DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission in 2005 advocated against state laws, supported by NAR, that disadvantage new kinds of brokers.
U.S. v. National Assoc. of Realtors, Civil Action No. 05C-5140 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 7, 2005). The practice of law in the United States also exemplifies modern guilds at work. Every state maintains its own
bar association, supervised by that state's highest court. The court decides the criteria for entering and staying in the legal profession. In most states, every attorney must become a member of that state's bar association in order to practice law. State laws forbid any person from engaging in the unauthorized practice of law and practicing attorneys are subject to rules of professional conduct that are enforced by the state's supreme court. Medical associations comparable to guilds include the state Medical Boards, the
American Medical Association, and the
American Dental Association. Medical licensing in most states requires specific training, tests and years of low-paid apprenticeship (internship and residency) under harsh working conditions. Even qualified international or out-of-state doctors may not practice without acceptance by the local medical guild (Medical board). Similarly, nurses and physicians' practitioners have their own guilds. A doctor cannot work as a physician's assistant unless they separately train, test and apprentice as one.
Australia Australia has several guilds. The most notable of these is
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia, created in 1927 as the Federated Pharmaceutical Services Guild of Australia. The Pharmacy Guild serves "6,000 community pharmacies," while also providing training and standards for the country's pharmacists. Australia's other guilds include the
Australian Directors Guild, representing the country's directors, documentary makers and animators, the
Australian Writers' Guild, the Australian Butcher's Guild, a fraternity of independent butchers which provides links to resources like Australian meat standards and a guide to different beef cuts, and The Artists Guild, a craft guild focusing on female artists. ==In fiction==