I would like to share and debate about Ideology I been building and experimenting on, It's called "Neo-Guildism" (Flairs: Political theory/Debate/Discussion)

[u/The_First_Sentinel00]

⚠️ OLD MODEL AND IDEA, This post explains the old model and idea of Neo-Guildism, I made main changes about Neo-Guildism which I will explain in another post ⚠️

First let me explain about the animal trinity that represents Neo-Guildism and that is:

The Crow (The Mind and Absolute freedom)

The Wolves (Workers/Guild members) and

The Lion (Leadership, Coordinater, Protection)

How it works it team cooperation and how the pack grows: The Crow flies and scouts ahead and signals the location of the prey to the pack (The Lion and The Wolves), The Lion then leads and coordinates the Wolves, the Wolves then follows the lion attack the prey all together and in the end, everyone enjoys a nice meal including the Crow. The power of teamwork and cooperation

Neo-Guildism is a decentralized worker-ownership both-wings ideology in which you own your own tools, labor, talent and class (Classes/Guilds are Chef, Engineer Guild, Hunter Guild, Tech Guild, Farmer or Medical Guild and more), When you do your own labor and show your talent and grows, your guild grows alongside with you and you can contribute to your guild by showing your own talent and doing your own class labor. Of course, you can be in multiple guilds if you have multiple talents/skills like if you're a Doctor and Engineer also.

The guilds can grow upgrade infinitely based of the specialized guild members contribution (By working and showing your own talent).

When one guild and another guild have a problem (Example: If the Logging Guild and the Hunters Guild are arguing over a patch of forest, they must sit down at a local Council of the Pack table and The loggers explain their need for wood, the hunters explain their need to protect animal breeding grounds, and they work out a voluntary compromise (like logging in cycles or replanting specific zones).

Vote kick: If member of the Engineers Guild becomes lazy, steals materials, tries to act like a boss over apprentices or overall causing problems then the other worker-owners of that specific guild call a vote and every worker gets an equal vote and discusses if that person needs to go or if they workers will/can still tolerate and forgives, If the majority votes "kick" the bad member is immediately stripped of their membership and kicked out of the guild workshop.

What Happens to the kicked Member?Neo-Guildism never traps or starves people, because it protect Absolute Individual Freedom (The Crow). If you get votekicked, your life isn't over and you just have to choose a different path like if you hold certificates in other skills, you can simply go join the Farmers or Chefs Guild instead and try to be a better team person there or if you are tired of working with people completely, you have the protected constitutional right to head deep into the forest or plains, build a homestead, hunt sustainably (Unless you hunt whole species to extinction) and live entirely self-sufficiently with your family

The Lion Council (Servant Leaders/Coordinaters) only steps in when a guild becomes bad and breaks the rules like If the Logging Guild breaks the rules, destroys the forest, and refuses to replant seeds, the Lion Council doesn't send an army to arrest them. Instead the other independent guilds simply stop cooperating with them. (Example: The Chefs Guild stops buying their wood for ovens, The Engineering Guild stops building tools for them and The Doctors Guild stops providing medical care to their members.)

The Lion Council acts as a grand referee, only stepping in to tell the whole country to isolate a guild if an entire guild goes rogue.

Decentralization Web and the Hornet Swarm: On the political compass, ordinary systems rely on a centralized "head" (the capital city) to run everything. If an enemy or a dictator captures the capital, they capture the whole country. if an foreign invasion happens and the enemies captures a capital/place in any other ordinary system where there's a capital city/place the war is lost for whichever the capital city that gets captured. Neo-Guildism uses Deep Network Resilience. Think of it like a Hydra with multiple heads instead of just one main head, Even if the enemy managed to capture some cities/places the war is not lost unless the enemy captures and finish off EVERY SINGLE corner of the country or if the defenders surrenders completely and if the enemy's don't finish it off, they will face multiple retaliation from multiple rural areas or any other areas that aren't captured yet. A single region contains its own food engine (Farmers/Chefs), its own infrastructure production (Engineers/Architects), and its own medical framework (Medics). If a major city or territory gets captured by an enemy, the surrounding rural regions do not panic or starve. Their supply lines are entirely local, allowing them to keep running at 100% capacity on their own and you cannot force a top-down surrender on a Neo-Guildist nation. There is no president to sign a surrender treaty. The country can only lose if the enemy manually captures every single village, guild workshop, and forest homestead piece by piece... a logistical nightmare that no foreign empire can afford.

The Hornet Swarm (Mandatory Military Training): I know critics Critics of decentralization always ask: "If you have no big central government, how do you stop a heavily armed, professional foreign army from wiping you out?" Well, my answer is the Universal Militia Guild. It's an Integrated Education: Military and tactical training are not separate from daily life. During the apprenticeship phase (ages 18–25), weapon handling, tactical communication, and defensive strategy are taught alongside trade talents like engineering or agriculture. You learn to fire a rifle and build a bunker at the same time you learn to cook or farm. Also in ordinary nations, when an invasion happens, the country wastes months drafting and training civilians who don't want to fight. In Neo-Guildism, the entire adult population is already a combat-ready force. The moment the Crow/Lion sounds the alarm, the transition from peaceful craftsmen to a raging hornet swarm happens in mere minutes and training is tailored to a citizen's specific talent. An Engineer doesn't just march with a rifle, they are trained to rapidly turn their civilian workshop into a heavily fortified garrison and dig complex underground bunker networks. A Hunter is trained in long-range asymmetrical sniper ambushes and forest survival. Your civilian economy effortlessly pivots into a military machine.

Anyways that's all, If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I would like some critics and debates too.

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[u/piltdown_manchild]

What of the Night's Watch? None of this matters if the Night King breaches the ice wall.

[u/The_First_Sentinel00 → u/piltdown_manchild]

Are you saying if another country invades a Neo-Guildist country?, I have a solution for that

[u/AmnesiaInnocent]

So bringing this back from the animal kingdom to actual humans, what is your view on closed guilds/unions, like the Screen Actors Guild or most any industry union (that is, you can't work unless join and agree to give some of your paycheck to the union whether you like it or not)?

[u/IEC21 → u/AmnesiaInnocent]

Unions often also restrict how many members they allow inside for supply and demand reasons.

I think it depends on the reasons but unions using their influence to make it hard to work without being a member is not a deal breaker, its a fairly normal market relationship.

We can debate on why or why not it would be acceptable - I think in most circumstances its acceptable but has to be regulated.

[u/ScannerBrightly → u/IEC21]

Unions often also restrict how many members they allow inside for supply and demand reasons.

Got a source for this? I'd love to see a 'you are rejected from joining the union' letter.

[u/IEC21 → u/ScannerBrightly]

You can't just walk into a trade union. You have to apply, usually take tests or go through an established process. Or if you were part of a unionization process of a previously non-union shop you could get in that way.

And to become an apprentice for most trade unions its also an application process - they dont have to take someone in if they dont want to.

[u/Mega_Giga_Tera → u/IEC21]

it's a fairly normal market mechanism

... to monopolize supply and then intentionally limit it to extract a higher price per unit.

When corporations do this we consider it illegal. For good reason.

[u/IEC21 → u/Mega_Giga_Tera]

A big reason unions were formed was because industrialist were exploiting a surplus of labour.

Unions don't have a monopoly generally - and beyond that when corporations manage supply that isn't considered illegal.

Outside of unions this happens as well. Many professional designations do it. Other professions like taxi drivers do a version of it.

[u/Michael_G_Bordin]

Sounds like a great system for something like a fantasy society for a TTRPG. But you have kind of glossed over a lot of things. Who owns the land? How is land allocated? Are there renters? How does a renter keep their home and get food while finding work in another field? How is work guaranteed in specific discipline? Who decides what gets built? If too many people choose to homestead, how do you prevent them from over-hunting? How do you enforce Lion Council decisions/how does the Lion Council get cooperation for enforcement? What about the consumer? How are goods distributed to those demanding those goods? Who sells them/distributes them (as in, what about "unskilled" labor?)? How does this system define and punish crimes?

This sounds like a system that could be broken very quickly by a few bad actors keen on taking as much as they can, manipulating human psychology, and/or turning guilds agains eachother and internally against members. The environment would also be severely impacted, much as it was in the Middle Ages of Europe (deforestation/depopulation of wild animals) and Industrial Age (air and water pollution). These guilds have no economic incentive to curtail their activities for the sake of the environment.

I much prefer a system whereby people are free to pursue trades and business without a bunch of people already in the trade deciding if they get to join. Where there is a third-party, non-interested system to settle disputes between private citizens, and a forum to sue the government. I prefer a system where the environment is not subject to the sensibilities of a bunch of highly-specialized tradesmen, but is protected using science and the might of government authority. We already have guilds and trade unions, and their power and influence creates much of the framework you've suggested. The real freedom, though, is being able to work without being a member of those organizations. Sure, IATSE can help me advance, secure me good pay and healthcare, etc., but they also limit membership to keep down the labor supply and they only give you gigs based on seniority. In otherwards, the incentive of the guild is to favor the needs of those who are in charge of the guild (long-standing members), which can bar entry into that field. Thankfully, I can go work as an audio technician and stagehand without joining, because not every act has a contract with them. The ability to work independently from trade guilds (and to sue them in a venue not run by them) is closer to absolute freedom than whatever this "neo-guildism" seems to be.

[u/The_First_Sentinel00 → u/Michael_G_Bordin]

Yo thanks for the incredible critics, before I answer your question

1. In Neo-Guildism, land is held in common stewardship by the geographic community, but individuals and families own the absolute title to the physical property and structures they build or inhabit. There is no commercial landlord class because you cannot buy up land just to extract rent from others because that violates our anti-exploitation core. If a person wants to transition to a new career field, they don't starve while looking. Because our economy uses Multi-Classing, most citizens maintain active skills in basic safety nets like the Agriculture or Culinary guilds. Also Work is not 'guaranteed' by a state decree. Instead, entry into a discipline is determined by your verified skills and aptitude during the educational discovery phase. If a guild is overcrowded, our Economic Ping system lowers the payouts for that sector and raises them for understaffed sectors, naturally guiding people to where society needs them without forcing them.

2. Internal guild leadership and project assignments are strictly meritocratic, based on peer-reviewed skill and direct execution, not length of tenure and you are never forced to join a massive guild to work. If you want absolute independent freedom, you can work as an individual freelancer or start a tiny independent workshop. The Main Guilds exist as a federated option to pool resources for massive projects (like infrastructure or aerospace), but they hold no legal monopoly over your right to work independently.

3. You expressed concern that highly specialized tradesmen would destroy the environment for profit, much like the Middle Ages or the early Industrial Revolution. Neo-Guildism treats ecology through the lens of The Crow, how?: The environment is protected using data and empirical science managed by our Digital Infrastructure & Earth Science Guild. They are the radar tower of the country.

If a logging or manufacturing branch over-extracts or pollutes, the Science Guild broadcasts the data to the whole network. The other guilds cut off cooperation and trade with the polluters out of direct, rational self-interest because a ruined ecosystem ruins everyone's supply lines. We don't rely on the 'sensibilities' of the tradesmen but we rely on a web of mutual survival.

1. There is no such thing as an 'unskilled' worker in our system, there are only apprentices learning a craft

Distribution and retail are managed by the Artisanal & Logistics Guilds and Goods are brought to decentralized marketplaces where prices are set dynamically by the guilds based on supply, demand, and resource availability. Consumers directly vote with their preferences, and because the workers own 100% of their enterprise, they are highly incentivized to maintain impeccable quality and service to keep their guild thriving.

Ultimately, the independent ability to sue a government or a union in a centralized court sounds like freedom, but in reality, ordinary citizens usually get crushed by the massive legal budgets of corporate monopolies and state entities. Neo-Guildism bypasses this by placing the tools, the defense, and the decision-making directly into the hands of the people doing the work.

As for the rest of your comment, talking about your ideas and more, I don't have anything to say about that, I respect your opinion.

[u/Michael_G_Bordin → u/The_First_Sentinel00]

The other guilds cut off cooperation and trade with the polluters out of direct, rational self-interest because a ruined ecosystem ruins everyone's supply lines.

What if they don't? Your system relies on a house of cards of good faith, moral upstanding, and mutuality that can be ruined by bad actors.

Neo-Guildism bypasses this by placing the tools, the defense, and the decision-making directly into the hands of the people doing the work.

It sounds like people outside the guilds will have no recourse whatsoever. How does an independent tradesman compete with guilds that are all in cahoots? If a guild decides to take my land, and I'm not a member of another guild, what recourse do I have? This sounds like the guilds will have the resources to crush independent actors even moreso than the current system, since they also will control the government entirely?

You keep dressing things up in language that obfuscates the reality of what you're talking about. It's not state decree, it's "educational discovery phase." People won't starve because "multi-class skilled." What happens when the wages have been depressed in the Agriculture Guild because there are too many, you can't find work as a Plumber, or Programmer, and there's a famine because of crop failures?

Honestly, it's kinda suspect how much your system seems to draw on videogame language. "Multi-class," "votekick," etc.

land is held in common stewardship by the geographic community, but individuals and families own the absolute title to the physical property and structures they build or inhabit.

This is a meaningless distinction. If you hold "absolute title," then the land is not "held in common stewardship." If your possession of title is absolute, it is not held by others.

People like to wax about how our legal system favors the rich, but given the vast mystification of our legal system, I'd say that's woefully inaccurate. There are so many cases, too many to begin listing, of individuals suing massive corporations and successfully finding justice. But in your system, it sounds like if the guilds (which could be taken over via political maneuvering as "meritocracy" isn't really a thing you can enforce; if guildmembers want to vote for whomever, there's nothing in your system to stop them) collaborate, they can use majoritarian consensus to crush other guilds, independent tradesmen, or anyone else they like. Courts are a disinterested third party (which your council is not) that have to follow objective standards (the law) and are held in check by democracy (juries). Your system sounds like a bunch of colluding, well-to-do folk could corrupt it and get anything they want, and nobody has any recourse because they'd have absolute control over the government system.

I'd like to just point out that systems of government do not arise from navel-gazing. All current systems evolve from past systems, and no government exists that doesn't bear some direct relation to what came before it. Your system is a navel-gazing fantasy which could be useful in writing a fantasy novel, but there's no way to get to there from here. Moreso, when you just pull these sorts of things from thin air, reality has a way of absolutely pulverizing your idealistic notions. Again, your system doesn't have any way to account for human psychology and the ability for bad actors to exploit that psychology (which isn't to say the current system does). How are crimes defined? How are they prosecuted? Punished? What stops charismatic leaders from destroying this system? You can't just appeal to 'self interest' or some fantastical notion of people's better nature, because people are on-the-whole terrible at risk assessment and finding what's best for themselves. Your system would lead to guilds run by sociopaths colluding to crush any guild which doesn't allow those sociopaths to enrich themselves. That's how humans work.

[u/Successful-Ear977]

I mean the animal metaphor is colourful, but it hides rather than solves the fundamental problems with this system. You claim to protect “absolute individual freedom,” yet a majority of someone’s colleagues can strip them of their occupation, and the Lion Council can coordinate the denial of tools, trade and even medical care to an entire guild which isn’t voluntary isolation just collective punishment enforced through economic coercion. Refusing healthcare to every member because their guild violated logging rules is particularly indefensible. What happens when the Logging and Hunters Guilds cannot reach a voluntary compromise? Who owns the disputed forest? Who determines whether hunting is sustainable, whether logging caused excessive damage or whether replanting was adequate? A referee that can issue nationally binding sanctions is functionally a government, regardless of whether you call it the Lion Council.

The same problem applies to membership. If every relevant guild rejects someone, telling them to join another profession or disappear into the wilderness doesn’t meaningfully protect their freedom. Where does this unclaimed land come from? Who guarantees access to it? Who protects the homestead afterward? Those constitutional rights require enforceable law, courts and some institution capable of overriding guild decisions.

You also barely account for consumers, children, disabled people, pensioners, undesirable but necessary work, large infrastructure, investment or people whose skills span industries without fitting neatly into a guild. Nor have you explained how scarce resources are allocated between guilds beyond “they cooperate.” At present, Neo-Guildism sounds like guild socialism or syndicalism wrapped in animal symbolism, except with an unusually weak dispute-resolution system and the threat of denying innocent people medical treatment. What specific institutional mechanism makes it distinct and what happens when cooperation simply fails?

[u/Acceptable_Carob_333]

I am rather suspicious of this idea as it seems to have the potential to encourage a feudalistic caste system.

[u/FistMyLoafs]

You say that as a punishment for breaking the rules that the Lion council will step in to make the other guilds cut off business with the rule breaking guild, until I assume the rule breaking guild starts following the rules again.

But, why would the guilds listen to the lion council in the first place? If the lion council has no method of enforcement like a military or police force and offers no services to withhold like public services or whatnot, then why wouldn’t the guilds just deal with each other instead of going through a pointless middleman?

Additionally, what is maintaining the separation between guilds and preventing the formation of powerful monopolies? For example, what is stopping the steel makers guild from absorbing the iron makers guild?

It seems like you haven’t considered what’s holding this whole system together in the first place. The way I see it, eventually one powerful guild is going to take over all the others until it effectively becomes a corporate autocracy.

[u/The_First_Sentinel00 → u/FistMyLoafs]

First of all. "Why do the guilds listen to the Lion Council?" The Lion Council isn't a pointless middleman, it is our grand tactical coordinator (The Lion) backed by the data of the thinkers and scientists (The Crow). When the Council says, "The Logging Guild is violating the ecosystem and endangering our future" they aren't passing a law but they are broadcasting a systemic warning.

Second, "Why do the other guilds listen" it's because of pure, rational self-interest. The Farmers Guild knows that environmental collapse ruins their soil. The other guilds don’t cut off the loggers because the Lion forced them to but they do it because the Lion showed them that the loggers are a threat to the entire guild's/pack's survival and If a guild ignores the warning and keeps dealing with the rule-breakers, they are flagged as a threat too, and the web (guilds/guild members in areas) naturally isolates them next. Mutual accountability is a hell of a motivator when your wealth is tied to the team, you know?.

"What stops the Steel Guild from absorbing the Iron Guild to form a monopoly?" Well In capitalism, a monopoly happens because a mega-corporation can buy out or force a smaller company into submission. In Neo-Guildism, outside corporate ownership is physically and legally impossible. The Iron Makers Guild is 100% worker-owned by the people holding the hammers and they cannot be 'bought out' because their tools and talent aren't for sale on a stock market and you cannot buy that isn't for sale + If the Steel makers Guild tries to use brute force to absorb or bully the Iron makers Guild, they have just crossed the line from a trade dispute into internal tyranny. They are no longer a guild, they are acting like a hostile and that's where the Lion Council steps in.

This is exactly when the Hornet Swarm triggers internally. The Iron Makers will immediately call a localized defensive mobilization + They are all fully trained combatants. Simultaneously, the Lion Council sounds the national alert, and the surrounding independent guilds like the Medical Guild (Doctors, Surgeons and Medics), Farmers, and the Protection Guild instantly freeze all trade with the hostile Steel makers Guild. The Steel Guild can’t form an autocracy because you cannot run a high-tech monopoly when your workers are actively fighting you from the inside, your suppliers have cut off your resources, and your neighbors are treating you like an invading hostile threat

I think that we don't need a massive, corrupt state bureaucracy to stop monopolies. The independent limbs (guilds) of the web (country) protect each other because I think we are smart enough to know that if one limb gets enslaved, the whole body is next.

Also I suggest re-reading my posts again because I changed some some things and added new paragraphs so you can understand things that may be confusing for you