Trade Guild

 

In a pre-industrial society, a trade guild is the backbone, and perhaps also the biceps and brains of the developing middle classes. These guilds exist principally to establish standards for quality workmanship, and to leverage the collective power of a group of skilled labourers to ensure fair dealings. All of these things are, of course, of great benefit to the individual members of the guild, but they are of little more than existential value to the guild itself, as an organization. Thus trade guilds are invariably political entities, and once their leadership evolves through a few generations, losing sight of the daily operational concerns of their membership and ennobling and entitling themselves, they tend to become bogged down in the quagmire of regional politics.