You mean giving the ideology of Communism to medieval kings? :)

@RudolfL.Jelínek No, I'm talking about maintaining the actual medieval ideology for a longer period of time instead of cutting it off at the Reformation. Communism as an ideology is a reaction to capitalism and thus shares some similar philosophical points.

Do you have a source for that level of prosperity statement? It is very interesting

@Mawg I'll see if I can find it again.

"Secondly, as a consequence of the above, ordinary men had a level of prosperity that they did not see again for four centuries, until the post-1945 welfare state and the rapid economic growth then seen." distributistreview.com/the-recovery-of-the-guilds

The guilds did not represent the working man. First, guilds were restricted to city dwellers, who represented maybe 5-10% of the total population. Secondly, guilds themselves became increasingly hereditary over time, and were used to enforce a commercial monopoly in the town, benefiting the guild members at the expense of non-guild workers. Thirdly, your quoted source does not have any references of its own. Given that it is from a communal-religious newsletter, one can assume a biased set of statistics are presented.

@RudolfL.Jelínek "communism" is a heavily loaded word. It doesn't tend to inspire ideas of fraternal cooperation on its own

@kingledion They didn't represent the working man? Then what was the working man doing? True guilds were only present in the more populated areas (as were for the most part law enforcement, etc), but that's also where most of the skilled craft labor occurred. There wasn't much need for a cobbler out in the middle of a rural area. Trades like farming and food production were generally not under a guild. The point of the guild was to ensure a standard on the trade, similar to how the bar association or medical licensing board might function combined also with a fraternal benefit society

@kingledion [cont.] since guild-members paid into a fund to support widows and orphans of deceased guild-members. The entire point was the guild represented the craftsmen of the are for a particular trade. The point of my post was not that the system was perfect or free from corruption at times but that the thing preventing industrialization had more to do with a philosophical view on labor, property and wealth which was different from modern view points. Regarding the link; that was the source I found when asked. I can't say for 100% certainty if that was the original source I found.

@kingledion [cont] You would be wrong to dismiss it as a "communal-religious newsletter". It's a journal of economic thought. Many of the writers have advanced degrees in economics and philosophy (among other fields) and are highly published. The fact that their philosophy is connected to a religion doesn't make the philosophy flawed. They do disagree with industrialization and capitalism and socialism as they are typically described, but their critiques aren't new. Writers have raised the same points for well over a century

We are not arguing the same thing. I am narrowly disagreeing with your implication that guilds represent the working man. Peasants, or laborers in towns, represented the working man in the Middle Ages. Guild members were the 'middle class' as we interpret it now, but at the time they were in the richest 5-10% of the population. I argue that peasants' economic and political freedoms and standard of living were much lower than what was enjoyed by the working man in 1700 or 1800 or other times before 1945. Therefore, I argue that your second paragraph is incorrect.

What laborers in town? That's exactly what the guild philosophically is for. You want to work with leather? You have to join the Cordwain guild. You want to work with wood? Join the carpenter guild, etc. Peasants in the original sense refers to farmers, which as I mentioned above weren't under the guild system. Each craftsman in the guild was independent in business and quite free to work as they desired. The point about 1945 referred to material prosperity, which I'd argue that modern views overemphasize material aspects compared to ideals (i.e. is it better to have wealth or liberty?)

Where is this 5-10% coming from? You above said that was the population of the cities at the time, but that may have been a grammatical ambiguity in your sentence. Concurrent with the abolition of the guilds is a shift in ownership of property from the lower classes to the nobles and kings; that's why the English country house becomes way more common after the 16th Century compared to the earlier lords of the manors home. The entire process of abolition of serfdom and slavery started to be undone in a matter of a few centuries as we switched back towards employment as the dominant labor form

For an excellent overview of medieval Europe, trade guilds, and the conditions that gave rise to the industrial revolution, check out Rodney Stark's book "How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity".

@RudolfL.Jelínek - It is incorrect to say that nothing happened for a thousand years. Technological, mathematical, philosophical, agricultural and legal developments during the so called dark and middle ages were substantial. The pace of change in the last few centuries blinds us to the fact that the pace of change a thousand years ago was also faster than what preceded it.

@PaulChernoch Yes, I used a hyperbole - of course things went on, but against what it was in ancient Greece and Europe after the end of the middle age it was overseeable.

Interesting thesis, but needs references if you mean it to refer to real history rather than just an idea to use in the story.

@Rudolf, progress may have stopped in Western Europe, but it carried on gangbusters in Byzantium (the Eastern Roman Empire) and the Arab and Chinese empires. When Constantinople fell to the Turks in the mid-1500s, monks brought a bunch of knowledge from Byzantium to Florence, and that kicked off the Renaissance, in which the West caught up with the East.

@JnaniJennyHale Constantinople fell in 1453, but the Italian Renaissance started well before then. Furthermore, the West developed much in the way of philosophy and art after the 7th century whereas the East began to stagnate due to various wars with the Turks and Arabs.

@JDługosz Off the top of my head, I can think of "The Servile State" by Belloc and "What's wrong with the world" by Chesterton. I've read the ideas expressed above in various sources (books and articles), but I can't necessarily recall which details came from where.

@eques Thanks for the extra info. Byzantium was well in decline, but it was also acquiring concepts from the Turks and Arabs. Brittanica states that "the spirit of the Renaissance did not surface again until the middle of the 15th century" after an initial burst in the 14th century, so I think we can have it both ways ...

@JnaniJennyHale I wasn't disputing that ideas came from the East in the 15th century only that the fall of Constantinople was the direct cause of the Renaissance and that the West was catching up to the East.