“The first part of this book is devoted to a theoretical discussion of the relations between producer and consumer, and their joint relations with the state. It is presupposed that readers are acquainted with the principles and purposes of the national guild movement. The argument is largely the outcome of controversy between the author and Mr G. D. H. Cole, in which different stresses were laid upon the status of the consumer, ‘and, in consequence, upon the structure of the state.’ At the end of the second part, which deals with ‘transition,’ Mr Hobson avers his belief that national guilds are inevitable. ‘There is no student of industry,’ he declares, ‘who ... would deny the possibility of a revolution’; and the author expresses his belief that wage-abolition, with its logical sequel of an infinitely more humane structure of society, will mark a great epoch in the history of western civilization.”—Ath
“This study marks a distinct advance in our knowledge of guild proposals.” J: G. Brooks
+ Am Econ R 10:858 D ’20 750w Ath p383 Mr 19 ’20 150w + Booklist 17:94 D ’20
Reviewed by Ordway Tead
Dial 69:412 O ’20 640w
“Mr Hobson in the first chapter of this book is guilty of substituting dialectic for honest examination. Few better analyses of the shop-steward movement and the tendencies of the unions have been written. They are full of rich thinking and are highly suggestive.” G: Soule
+ − Nation 111:73 Jl 17 ’20 800w
“Continentals and Americans born west of New England will hardly be able to grasp Mr Hobson’s analysis. The present reviewer, not being a theologian, confesses hopelessness in the presence of it. The trouble with Mr Hobson and his brethren is that they are looking for exactness where none can exist, for the separation of that which never can be separated. They are modern utopians. They seek finality.” C: A. Beard
− + New Republic 25:50 D 8 ’20 1900w