Economic Power​—Builder of Empires

The world of commerce has built powerful organizations. An example, according to the book By the Sweat of Thy Brow, is “one of the most far-​reaching and long-​lasting socioeconomic innovations of the ancient world: the craft corporation or guild.” Reminiscent of similar powerful organizations today, these guilds, along with accomplishing good, at times blatantly abused their power, so much so that Bible translator John Wycliffe is said to have denounced some of them in the 14th century as “false conspiratours . . . cursed of God and man.”​—See box on page 13.

[Box on page 13]

The Power of Guilds and Labor Unions

By the fourth century B.C.E., some Mediterranean cities were specializing in certain commodities, with practitioners of the same craft gathering to the same area within these cities. Initially, these craft guilds were evidently religious-​social in nature. By the Sweat of Thy Brow tells us that “each association had its patron god or goddess, and its members held their own communal religious services.”

Medieval guilds were designed to provide welfare assistance to their members and to protect the craft as a whole by regulating production and setting standards, possibly even controlling prices and wages. Some became monopolistic, manipulating prices by secret agreements, aiming to protect the guild’s market and to prevent unfair competition.

As a follow-​up of ancient craft guilds, merchant guilds came into existence in the 11th century, when traveling merchants organized them to gain protection against highway dangers. But the guilds gradually lost their original character. Geared to local trade, their power and prestige slipped as regional, national, and international markets became predominant and as merchants began to overshadow craftsmen.