Majority rule, as it exists in large States, is subject to the fatal defect that, in a very great number of questions, only a fraction of the nation have any direct interest or knowledge, yet the others have an equal voice in their settlement.When people have no direct interest in a question they are very apt to be influenced by irrelevant considerations; this is shown in the extraordinary reluctance to grant autonomy to subordinate nations or groups.For this reason, it is very dangerous to allow the nation as a whole to decide on matters which concern only a small section, whether that section be geographical or industrial or defined in any other way.The best cure for this evil, so far as can be seen at present, lies in allowing self- government to every important group within a nation in all matters that affect that group much more than they affect the rest of the community.The government of a group, chosen by the group, will be far more in touch with its constituents, far more conscious of their interests, than a remote Parliament nominally representing the whole country.The most original idea in Syndicalism-- adopted and developed by the Guild Socialists--is the idea of making industries self-governing units so far as their internal affairs are concerned.By this method, extended also to such other groups as have clearly separable interests, the evils which have shown themselves in representative democracy can, I believe, be largely overcome.
Guild Socialists, as we have seen, have another suggestion, growing naturally out of the autonomy of industrial guilds, by which they hope to limit the power of the State and help to preserve individual liberty.They propose that, in addition to Parliament, elected (as at present) on a territorial basis and representing the community as consumers, there shall also be a ``Guild Congress,'' a glorified successor of the present TradeUnion Congress, which shall consist of representatives chosen by the Guilds, and shall represent the community as producers.
This method of diminishing the excessive power of the State has been attractively set forth by Mr.G.D.H.Cole in his ``Self-Government in Industry.''[54] ``Where now,'' he says, ``the State passes a Factory Act, or a Coal Mines Regulation Act, the Guild Congress of the future will pass such Acts, and its power of enforcing them will be the same as that of the State'' (p.98).His ultimate ground for advocating this system is that, in his opinion, it will tend to preserve individual liberty: ``The fundamental reason for the preservation, in a democratic Society, of both the industrial and the political forms of Social organization is, it seems to me, that only by dividing the vast power now wielded by industrial capitalism can the individual hope to be free'' (p.91).
[54] Bell, 1917.
