Could Guilds have evolved?

I’m playing around in my head with this idea of guilds evolving into member-owned joint-stock companies. The most obvious wpuld be merchant guilds, since trade is where joint-stock companies took off.

I’m imagining shares being determined both by investment and rank within the guild. Master shares would be available only to masters, journeyman shares to journeymen, and apprentices might have non-voting shares. Maybe outside investors could buy non-voting shares, as well.

Edit: made the title slightly more accurate.
 
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I’m playing around in my head with this idea of guilds evolving into member-owned joint-stock companies. The most obvious wpuld be merchant guilds, since trade is where joint-stock companies took off.

I’m imagining shares being determined both by investment and rank within the guild. Master shares would be available only to masters, journeyman shares to journeymen, and apprentices might have non-voting shares. Maybe outside investors could buy non-voting shares, as well.

Would the guild be producing more shares as the number of masters and journeyman increase? Because if so you're creating a perverse incentive to limits the expansion of the higher titles to keep the values of the shares owned by pre-existing rankers high, and if not you're going to be creating an increasingly un-responsive group of shareholders as you end up with more and more masters without voting privlages: having to run shops on rules they don't have a voice in establishing.
 
Would the guild be producing more shares as the number of masters and journeyman increase? Because if so you're creating a perverse incentive to limits the expansion of the higher titles to keep the values of the shares owned by pre-existing rankers high, and if not you're going to be creating an increasingly un-responsive group of shareholders as you end up with more and more masters without voting privlages: having to run shops on rules they don't have a voice in establishing.

I imagine such a guild could issue additional shares to keep things in whatever balance they think is best. If they want to maintain balance, members could earn additional shares as their tenure in the guild advances

Just like modern corporations have to make judgement calls on what types of shares to issue and to whom.
 
I imagine such a guild could issue additional shares to keep things in whatever balance they think is best. If they want to maintain balance, members could earn additional shares as their tenure in the guild advances

Just like modern corporations have to make judgement calls on what types of shares to issue and to whom.

What balance is best for whom? The current journeymen and masters, who have an incentive to keep the number of shares in circulation as low as possible? Because they're the ones with the vote
 
What balance is best for whom? The current journeymen and masters, who have an incentive to keep the number of shares in circulation as low as possible? Because they're the ones with the vote

Could I ask how you see this situation is different from modern corporations with employee stock options?
 
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I would imagine that you could enable share ownership similar to OTL shares/stocks but have so that only Guild members can vote and said votes depending not only on number of shares but also master/journeyman status.
 
I would imagine that you could enable share ownership similar to OTL shares/stocks but have so that only Guild members can vote and said votes depending not only on number of shares but also master/journeyman status.

So, you think that situation, more or less what I proposed, is something that could be plausible? Assuming, of course, the legal framework for joint stock companies exists.

Not sure if this would need limited liability - it would certainly help, but I could see guilds just taking it for granted that members would all be liable, so closely bound were they.
 
I imagine such a guild could issue additional shares to keep things in whatever balance they think is best. If they want to maintain balance, members could earn additional shares as their tenure in the guild advances

Just like modern corporations have to make judgement calls on what types of shares to issue and to whom.

One word: competition

Unless you're going to remove the traditional political power held by guilds, particularly their legal monopolies in quality control and the right to operate a facility in their trade, than they don't have to worry about limiting the supply and seeing a competing guild snatch the market share up
 
So, you think that situation, more or less what I proposed, is something that could be plausible? Assuming, of course, the legal framework for joint stock companies exists.

Not sure if this would need limited liability - it would certainly help, but I could see guilds just taking it for granted that members would all be liable, so closely bound were they.
I imagine it starting with guilds allocating voting privileges in accordance to investment. Then you get regulation of those privileges with paper proof essentially becoming stock certificates. (Compare the evolution of promissory notes into bank notes.)

As for plausibility, look at the Pyrenean lordships with shared inheritance among heirs that essentially became shares in the lordship along with proportional rights and votes.
 
One word: competition

Unless you're going to remove the traditional political power held by guilds, particularly their legal monopolies in quality control and the right to operate a facility in their trade, than they don't have to worry about limiting the supply and seeing a competing guild snatch the market share up

I’m not sure I follow how that addresses my point. Especially regarding merchant guilds, which by definition can’t have much of a monopoly.
 
I’m not sure I follow how that addresses my point. Especially regarding merchant guilds, which by definition can’t have much of a monopoly.

It ties in with the stipulation that the only voting shares are held by masters and journeymen.I'll admit this applies mainly to craft guilds (though I'd hesitate, in that case, to classify the merchant associations in the same category in this case. The two are fundamentally different enough beasts in this case that transfering the ideas of how they transform isen't fair), but master and journeymen status carry with them privlages that directly relate to rate of production. In a corporation, expanding or reducing the number of voting shareholders had no such effect.
 
And keep in mind that however you decide to reform them, you need a way to spread it over a wide area. The bigger the better.

Being that guilds IOTL were in large part RELIGIOUS organisations, I would do it before the reformation and find some way to tie your reform to a popular saint or monastic order. The best candidate off the top of my head is St. Francis.

So, perhaps Francis or one of his followers develops an idea to alleviate the poverty and suffering of apprentices and journeyman by allowing them to have more of a say in how Guilds are run. It spreads through the popularity of Franciscan orders to all of Catholic Europe.

This in turn creates organisations that are more democratic and accepting of innovation. This could create greater technology spread and economic growth in Europe, especially when the plague hits and skilled laborers like guildsmen become even more valuable.

Given the proximity of guilds to the religious establishment, though, this might also also increase religious instability, as suddenly a bishop can't just buy off the guildmasters when hussitism, catharism, or lollardy sweeps through the lower orders.

So...possibility of earlier religious wars, or perhaps a stronger conciliarist movement that attains supremacy over Rome?
 
It ties in with the stipulation that the only voting shares are held by masters and journeymen.I'll admit this applies mainly to craft guilds (though I'd hesitate, in that case, to classify the merchant associations in the same category in this case. The two are fundamentally different enough beasts in this case that transfering the ideas of how they transform isen't fair), but master and journeymen status carry with them privlages that directly relate to rate of production. In a corporation, expanding or reducing the number of voting shareholders had no such effect.

I’m still having a hard time getting your objection, so I’m assuming we’re both approaching this from very different angles. I keep typing up answers to your concerns, but then I go back and second guess whether I’m actually addressing your point, so I type over it.
 
I’m still having a hard time getting your objection, so I’m assuming we’re both approaching this from very different angles. I keep typing up answers to your concerns, but then I go back and second guess whether I’m actually addressing your point, so I type over it.

We might be... I apologize for my half in that. I suppose what I'm trying to say is its certainly possible, from a structural viewpoint, to pull it off but that if there's an increase in the number of masters shares that come into existance by the creation of new masters, than those who already possess those shares would be motivated to slow the rate of the introducion of new masters (And, being the only voting members on the 'board', would be able to control the guild policy to get the rate they want) which would ultimately retard the rate the craft can expand due to restricting how many productive facilities/shops and work teams you could have. But if you don't, than the guild will be managed by an increasingly smaller and smaller percentage of the masters and journeymen as you get an increasing number of those ranks who won't have them since those who possess them are likely going to be unwilling to sell.

Like you suggested, though, this can be got around by producing new shares that members are granted for years of service at a particular rank. If they can't be sold outside the guild, but only produce dividends, then you can avoid the potential issue with that of the principal investment depreciating.
 
It exists something similar today, it's called a worker co-operative. However, this obviously isn't a model that can't as good as open companies do. Guilds work based on two main bases: market reserve and concealed knowledge about a craft. Once the government allows people to just do their crafts outside the guild, one capitalist with huge amounts of money will use it to by half dozen unhappy guildsmen, cut costs, increase productivity and soon enough it will outcompete the old guild.
 
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