Hostname: page-component-cc8bf7c57-ksm4s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-10T01:07:22.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Thinking carefully about inclusiveness: evidence from European guilds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2020

Sheilagh Ogilvie*
Affiliation:
All Souls College, Oxford, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: sheilagh.ogilvie@all-souls.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

Policy lessons are often drawn from the emergence in Europe of ‘inclusive’ institutions, which are held to have displaced ‘extractive’ institutions and fostered economic growth. This article analyzes the concept of inclusiveness using evidence on a historical institution that has been widely viewed as inclusive – the guild. It finds that we must differentiate between three types of inclusiveness: community, corporative, and societal. Community inclusiveness refers to the share of individuals involved in an institution's operations, corporative inclusiveness the share of political representation enjoyed by the institution itself, and societal inclusiveness the extent to which the institution enables full economic and political participation by everyone in society. We must also distinguish between general inclusiveness, which takes into account general-equilibrium effects, and partial inclusiveness, which assumes away such effects. Inclusiveness and extractiveness are not opposites in theory, and guilds show why certain types of inclusive institution are likely to behave in extractive ways. Finally, guilds alert us to trade-offs between inclusive economic institutions, inclusive political institutions, and inclusive growth. History does not imply abandoning the concept of inclusiveness, but rather thinking about it carefully.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D. (2003), ‘Why Not a Political Coase Theorem? Social Conflict, Commitment and Politics’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 31(4): 620652.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. A. (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, New York: Crown Publishers.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. A. (2019), The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty, New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Ammannati, F. (2014), ‘Craft Guild Legislation and Woollen Production the Florentine Arte della Lana in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries’, in Davids, K. and De Munck, B. (eds.), Innovation and Creativity in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Cities, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 5580.Google Scholar
Angelucci, C., Meraglia, S. and Voigtländer, N. (2017), ‘The Medieval Roots of Inclusive Institutions: from the Norman Conquest of England to the Great Reform Act’, NBER Working Papers, 23606.Google Scholar
Auriol, E. and Warlters, M. (2005), ‘Taxation Base in Developing Countries’, Journal of Public Economics, 89(4): 625646.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blockmans, W. (1999), ‘Regionale Vielfalt im Zunftwesen in den Niederlanden vom 13. bis zum 16. Jahrhundert’, in Schulz, K., and Müller-Luckner, E. (eds), Handwerk in Europa. Vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Frühen Neuzeit, Munich: Oldenbourg, pp. 5163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumberg, J. (2017). ‘Harvard's Incoming Freshman Class is One-Third Legacy – Here's Why That's a Problem’, CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/06/harvards-Incoming-Class-is-One-Third-legacy.html (9 June 2017).Google Scholar
Burgess, J. S. (1928), The Guilds of Peking, New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, J. S. (1930), ‘The Guilds and Trade Associations of China’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 152(1): 7280CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caracausi, A. (2011), ‘The Just Wage in Early Modern Italy: A Reflection on Zaccia's De Salario seu Operariorum Mercede’, International Review of Social History, 56(Special issue): 107124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cerutti, S. (2012), Étrangers: étude d'une condition d'incertitude dans une société d'Ancien régime, Montrouge: Bayard.Google Scholar
Connor, J. M. (2014). ‘Price-Fixing Overcharges: Revised 3rd Edition (February 24, 2014)’, SSRN Working Papers 2400780.Google Scholar
De la Croix, D., Doepke, M. and Mokyr, J. (2018), ‘Clans, Guilds, and Markets: Apprenticeship Institutions and Growth in the Pre-Industrial Economy’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 133(1): 170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennison, T. and Ogilvie, S. (2007), ‘Serfdom and Social Capital in Bohemia and Russia’, Economic History Review, 60(3): 513544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennison, T. and Ogilvie, S. (2014), ‘Does the European Marriage Pattern Explain Economic Growth?’, Journal of Economic History, 74(3): 651693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dennison, T. and Ogilvie, S. (2016), ‘Institutions, Demography, and Economic Growth’, Journal of Economic History, 76(1): 205217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehmer, J. (1997), ‘Worlds of Mobility: Migration Patterns of Viennese Artisans in the 18th Century’, in Crossick, G. (ed), The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, Hants./Brookfield VT: Scolar Press, pp. 172199.Google Scholar
Ennis, S. F. and Kim, Y. (2017), ‘Market Power and Wealth Distribution’, in World Bank (ed.), A Step Ahead: Competition Policy for Shared Prosperity and Inclusive Growth, Washington, DC: World Bank Group, pp. 133153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farr, J. R. (2000), Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gamble, S. D. (1921), Peking: A Social Survey, New York: George H. Doran.Google Scholar
Greif, A. (2006), Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, A. and Tabellini, G. (2010), ‘Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared’, American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 100(2): 135140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, A. and Tabellini, G. (2017), ‘The Clan and the Corporation: Sustaining Cooperation in China and Europe’, Journal of Comparative Economics, 45(1): 135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajnal, J. (1983), ‘Two Kinds of Pre-Industrial Household Formation System’, in Wall, R., Robin, J. and Laslett, P. (eds.), Family Forms in Historic Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 65104.Google Scholar
Horn, J. (2015), Economic Development in Early Modern France: The Privilege of Liberty, 1650–1820, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivaldi, M., Jenny, F. and Khimich, A. (2017), ‘Cartel Damages to the Economy: An Assessment for Developing Countries’, in World Bank (ed.), A Step Ahead: Competition Policy for Shared Prosperity and Inclusive Growth, Washington, DC: World Bank Group, pp. 77110.Google Scholar
Ivaldi, M., Jullien, B., Rey, P., Seabright, P. and Tirole, J. (2003), ‘The Economics of Tacit Collusion’, Final Report for DG Competition, European Commission, March 2003.Google Scholar
Johnson, N. D. and Koyama, M. (2019), Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, S. L. (1986), ‘Social Classification and Representation in the Corporate World of Eighteenth-Century France: Turgot's “Carnival”’, in Kaplan, S. L. and Koepp, C. J. (eds.), Work in France: Representations, Meaning, Organization and Practice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 176226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kisch, H. (1989), From Domestic Manufacture to Industrial Revolution: The Case of the Rhineland Textile Districts, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kluge, A. (2007), Die Zünfte, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner.Google Scholar
La Force, J. C. (1965), The Development of the Spanish Textile Industry, 1750–1800, Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lantschner, P. (2015), The Logic of Political Conflict in Medieval Cities: Italy and the Southern Low Countries, 1370–1440, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipson, E. (1915), The Economic History of England, Vol. I: The Middle Ages, London: A. & C. Black.Google Scholar
Malanima, P. (2010), ‘Urbanization’, in Broadberry, S. and O'Rourke, K. H. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, Vol 1: 1700–1870 (Vol. 1), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 235263.Google Scholar
Mickwitz, G. (1936), Die Kartellfunktionen der Zünfte und ihre Bedeutung bei der Entstehung des Zunftwesens: eine Studie im spätantiker und mittelalterliche Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Helsingfors: Societas scientiarum Fennica.Google Scholar
Moll-Murata, C. (2013), ‘Guilds and Apprenticeship in China and Europe: The Jingdezhen and European Ceramics Industries’, in Prak, M. R. and Van Zanden, J. L. (eds.), Technology, Skills and the Pre-Modern Economy in the East and the West: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of S. R. Epstein, Leiden: Brill, pp. 225258.Google Scholar
Morse, H. B. (1909), The Gilds of China, with an Account of the Gild Merchant or Co-hong of Canton, Shanghai/London/New York: Kelly, & Wash Ltd./Longmans/Green.Google Scholar
North, D. C., Wallis, J. J. and Weingast, B. R. (2009), Violence and Social Orders. A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (1997), State Corporatism and Proto-Industry: The Württemberg Black Forest, 1580–1797, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (1999), ‘The German State: A Non-Prussian View’, in Brewer, J. and Hellmuth, E. (eds.), Rethinking Leviathan: The Eighteenth-Century State in Britain and Germany, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 167202.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2000), ‘The European Economy in the Eighteenth Century’, in Blanning, T. W. C. (ed.), The Short Oxford History of Europe, Vol. XII: The Eighteenth Century: Europe 1688–1815, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 91130.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2004), ‘How Does Social Capital Affect Women? Guilds and Communities in Early Modern Germany’, American Historical Review, 109(2): 325359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2005), ‘The Use and Abuse of Trust: The Deployment of Social Capital by Early Modern Guilds’, Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 2005(1): 1552.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2007), ‘Whatever Is, Is Right’? Economic Institutions in Pre-Industrial Europe’, Economic History Review, 60(4): 649684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2011), Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2014a), ‘Serfdom and the Institutional System in Early Modern Germany’, in Cavaciocchi, S. (ed.), Slavery and Serfdom in the European Economy from the 11th to the 18th Centuries, Florence: Firenze University Press, pp. 3358.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2014b), ‘The Economics of Guilds’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(4): 169192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogilvie, S. (2019), The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ogilvie, S. and Carus, A. W. (2014), ‘Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective’, in Durlauf, S. and Aghion, P. (eds.), Handbook of Economic Growth (Vo. 2A), Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 405514.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1971), The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, M. (1982), The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities, New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Poni, C. (1989), ‘Norms and Disputes: The Shoemakers’ Guild in Eighteenth-Century Bologna’, Past & Present, 123(1): 80108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poni, C. (1991), ‘Local Market Rules and Practices: Three Guilds in the Same Line of Production in Early Modern Bologna’, in Woolf, S. (ed), Domestic Strategies: Work and Family in France and Italy, 1600-1800, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 69101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pontet, J. (1997), ‘Craftsmen and Revolution in Bordeaux’, in Crossick, G. (ed), The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, Hants./Brookfield VT: Scolar Press, pp. 116130.Google Scholar
Prak, M. R. (2018), Citizens Without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prak, M., Crowston, C. H., De Munck, B., Kissane, C., Minns, C., Schalk, R. and Wallis, P. (2020 online early), ‘Access to the Trade: Monopoly and Mobility in European Craft Guilds in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Journal of Social History: 132.Google Scholar
Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R. and Nanetti, R. Y. (1993), Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rajan, R. (2019), The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind, New York: Penguin Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, G. (2004), ‘Guilds, Laws, and Markets for Manufactured Merchandise in Late-Medieval England’, Explorations in Economic History, 41(1): 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosser, G. (2015), The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages: Guilds in England 1250–1550, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaff, F. (2018), ‘Economic Divergence and the ‘Inequality Extraction Ratio’: Early Modern Germany in a European Perspective’, M.Phil. thesis, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar
Shiue, C. H. (2017), ‘Human Capital and Fertility in Chinese Clans before Modern Growth’, Journal of Economic Growth, 22(4): 351396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stasavage, D. (2014), ‘Was Weber Right? The Role of Urban Autonomy in Europe's Rise’, American Political Science Review, 108(2): 337354CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stasavage, D. (2017), ‘When Inclusive Institutions Failed: Lessons from the Democratic Revolutions of the Middle Ages’, New York University Working Papers, January 2017.Google Scholar
Stuart, K. (1999), Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts: Honor and Ritual Pollution in Early Modern Germany, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tullock, G. (1975), ‘Competing for Aid’, Public Choice, 21(Spring, 1975): 4151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unwin, G. (1908), The Gilds and Companies of London, London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Van Bavel, B. J. P. (2010), Manors and Markets: Economy and Society in the Low Countries, 500–1600, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Steensel, A. (2016), ‘Guilds and Politics in Medieval Urban Europe. Towards a Comparative Institutional Analysis’, in Jullien, E. and Pauly, M. (eds.), Craftsmen and Guilds in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, pp. 3756.Google Scholar
Wahl, F. (2019), ‘Political Participation and Economic Development. Evidence from the Rise of Participative Political Institutions in the Late Medieval German Lands’, European Review of Economic History, 23(2): 193213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar