Guild Socialists after Guild Socialism: the Workers' Control Group and the House of Industry League

The 1930s saw two discrete attempts by former Guild Socialiststo revive aspects of the Guild Socialist Project. While G. D.H. Cole, William Mellor, and other former members and supportersof the National Guilds League took an active lead in developingideas about workers' Control for consideration within the officiallabour movement, S. G. Hobson attempted to propagate the ideaof ‘functional representation’. Discussions initiatedby Cole and Mellor led to a clarification of ideas which contributedsignificantly to the success of advocates of workers' controlat successive TUCs and Labour Party conferences in the early1930s. Hobson's movement, by contrast, was largely abortive.Workers' control and ‘functionalism’ were both constiuentideas of mature Guild Socialism. The failure of their respectiveadvocates to engage with each other effectively during the 1930s,however, reveals theoretical differences within Guild Socialismwhich were never adequately articulated during the active lifeof the movement.