I have spent quite a bit of time arguing against those who posit a delightful, justice-filled, pre-capitalist time in which competition was limited, greed was kept in check, and the guilds looked out for the well being of all market participants. This vision bears exactly zero resemblance to reality, in which the guilds stifled commerce, harmed ordinary people, and suppressed competition to a degree we can scarcely fathom — you were typically not permitted even to sneeze in front of your shop, since this would call attention to your place of business. And why should your place of business enjoy a special advantage?

Along these lines, what looks to be a very interesting book has just been released: Sheilagh Ogilvie’s Institutions and European Trade: Merchant Guilds, 1000–1800 (Cambridge University Press, 2011). According to Jeff Hummel, Professor Ogilvie, who teaches at Cambridge, “contests the recent glorification of guilds as being bastions of what is called proto-industrialism, and she shows in her works that guilds were, to her mind and evidence, always a detriment to commerce, economic growth, a better life for society’s members, and to the advance of economic liberty.”

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