If we go on to examine the influence of the guild system and occupational freedom on the way in which members of same trade live and work together, we must immediately notice the characteristic difference: under the guild system agreements can only be created by statutory order, but under occupational freedom they are made freely. This could also be put a different way: under the guilds an external human law tries to unite members of the same trade with each other artificially and systematically, while under conditions of freedom an inner divine law works to combine occupational brethren in working love and mutual assistance. With these last words we are capable only of hinting at the importance and future we ascribe to association, that new form of economic combination. The cooperative element is undoubtedly still called upon to play a splendid role in the economic life of the nations, all the more so since this development is facilitated and promoted by the sublime teachings of Christianity. From this Christian point of view, the old proverb “Concordia res parvae crescunt” – “through harmony, even the small thing becomes large” – can even be understood in a deeper sense. If we trust in a higher world order and believe in humanity’s Christian development, then we may also hope that unity transfigured into love will, little by little, sanctify and promote even the economic activity of people, that it will unite into working communities the forces that have gone to rack and ruin in isolation, and that, in a single word, it will help solve the great social problem of getting the great mass of the people to participate move evenly and in greater number in the profits of production and the progress of affluence.
It cannot escape the observer of humanity’s social progress that a path has already been taken in the direction just noted, that the principle of unity and socialization has already created a series of beneficial economic institutions that use the aggregate power of a majority as a support for the weakness of the individual, that ward off or lessen the dangers of fate, and that thereby compensate for differences in wealth, or at least allow as many people as possible to take part in the enhanced spiritual and physical well-being of society. We need only recall the numerous insurance companies that protect against all kinds of dangers, [and] then the welfare, health, and pension funds, the credit associations for craftsmen that are gradually being transplanted into Germany’s smallest cities, the reading and educational societies, the occupational trades associations, journeymen's associations, workers' educational associations, the associations for the cooperative acquisition of foodstuff and raw materials, as well as those for cooperative workshops, etc. But all these institutions need to emerge from freedom or the participants’ own choosing, they flourish much better outside the guilds, indeed, most of them need to reach out to the greatest number of participants as possible if they are going to be of economic utility, if their administration is not going to become too costly, if the individual’s risk and sacrifice are not to be too great and his dividends not too small. This disposes of the last argument for defending the guilds, which are usually regarded as effective owing
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