This is a continuation from my first blog post on “Business, Politics, Technology and Religion”. Please note that much of these two articles comes from my previous research and my current conceptualisations, it also comes out of my head exactly as you see it. When I write blog posts I try not to edit it too much, and therefore I apologise for any fragmented and disjointed flow to the articles.

Last time I highlighted the Guild system, and highlighted some of its contemporary counterparts. Notably Livery Companies, Guild Socialist groups, Co-operatives and Friendly Societies. I also noted that the Guild-style groups share some kind of connection with political ideology, yet they have supporters and enemies from the whole of the political spectrum. My attempt in this part is to try to reach some kind of personal conclusion.

With Guilds and guild-style systems there seems to be some kind of connection with business, or at least the way to personally run a business. As I mentioned before, Guilds themselves were made out of self-employed members, and Co-operatives these days are also a form of “shared independence” (either as an entity employing people, or as a collective of self-employed people).

We can also see some kind of connection between co-operatives and political parties. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is a “Co-operative Party” which is strongly allied to the Labour Party (you’ll often see some MPs as belonging to the Labour Co-Operative Party). However, Co-Operatives in general do try to maintain political-party independence, and will do their best to promote the co-operative way of working to all political parties. Co-Operatives have a following from many people, and the Liberal Democrats of the United Kingdom have a informal group dedicated to Co-Operatives being a good Liberal and Democratic technique for business.

Livery Companies seem to have a strong interest in helping individuals do the best that they can for the progression of their industry. This is through schemes such as the Journeyman Scheme (as mentioned in Part 1), or through Charity (in the form of University/Research bursaries, or funding community initiatives). From what I’ve read so far, they don’t seem to provide any kind of way that a business should work, although in many cases they can act as professional bodies and provide professional advice. Livery Companies do, however, have some ceremonial hand in the politics of the “City of London Corporation”, as they provide the construct for a man or woman to become a Freeman or a Liveryman of the City of London (which I understand to have certain privileges relating to the election of the Lord Mayor).

I’ve not said much about how technology hooks in with all of this. Technology, in particular the world wide web, provides a platform for the ability to work across all localities, states and countries. Merchants of yesteryear used to sail the seas and traverse the lands in order to trade, nowadays a lot of trade happens on the world-wide-web. Many businesses and many self-employed people now have their own website, their own portal to their work - this is new merchantry. This means that the freelancers of today, myself included, that work primarily on the web (Thomas W. Malone, whom I am drawing from some of his ideas, would call us e-Lancers [1]), are new merchants. But we lack a professional basis, granted that there are professional bodies such as the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), but they are often “too professional” for the grassroots style of the web. There are also a handful of co-operatives which have started up to provide software and web development services (one such service can be found in my home area of the South West of England and are called the “Software Co-Operative”, an organisation that I would highly recommend), but I am not sure if I am ready to commit myself to working within a co-operative just quite yet (but I shan’t rule it out for the future). I believe that “e-Lancers” could probably do with being part of a Guild, something that can act a bit like a professional body, at the same time as providing some kind of co-opertition, with some “friendliness” (possibly in the friendly-society meaning).

Almost every Livery Company of London is styled as a “Worshipful Company”, this is because they have a Royal Charter from the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. The Monarchy is a religious organisation, it is Protestant Christian - the Queen being seen as the head of the Church of England (Anglicanism) and the Church of Scotland (Presbyterianism) [2]. The Livery Companies therefore have some spiritual basis, but I must state that the companies are open to any man or woman. The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists also have a “Ethical and Spiritual Panel”, which I find quite interesting and will try to find out a bit more about.

I am currently (3:15pm GMT - 23rd March 2011) writing this line of text in a Costa Coffee shop just in front of St Pauls Cathedral in London, drinking a Cinnamon Latte. I am within the City of London area, the very capital of the Livery Companies of London. At 5pm, I am due to have some meetings at the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) - as I have applied to become a Journeyman of the Company. I suspect that I’ll possibly write yet another blog post after I’ve had the meetings, just detailing whats happening and maybe also anything that I may have learnt that is relevant to these two blog posts.

Now lets put this all into a personal context. Many of you will know that I try to promote the act of “building bridges between communities”, and also the act of “knowing thyself” - and hence my stringing together of Business, Technology, Politics and Religion in these two blog posts. You will know that I am a rather Liberal individual, I am happy in the knowledge that other people have different religious and political views to myself, and I accept our differences. I also try to promote equality amongst all peoples (no matter about age, gender, race, cultural background or political views). I condemn those people, organisations and schools of thought that try to destroy freedom and human rights. I promote organisations which try to better society, and try to make things more efficient. I somewhat favour distributist or decentralist political theory. I am a card carrying member of the Liberal Democrats of the United Kingdom (and support the actions of ALDE, ELDR and Liberal International). I try to promote the use of the Alternative Vote (AV) system, and also (preferably) the Proportional Representation (PR) election methodology - for the use in all elections in the United Kingdom [3]. I am a Christian, albeit one with a slightly unorthodox (or heterodox) theology based around mysticism, esotericism, liberalism and progressivism, but I was baptised and confirmed in the Church of England as an Adult by the Bishop of Oxford (John Pritchard). I am also a Freemason (in the Craft under UGLE, and in Royal Arch under the SGC of England), and I am happy to admit that as I believe that Freemasonry has nothing to hide, plus I’m quite open to talk about it and what it means to me (I am also acknowledge all three forms of Freemasonry: Male, Female and “Co” Masonry - as each have their reasons for existence, and I would say that the members of all are my Brothers/Sisters). I am a self-employed Computer Scientist, and a Member of the British Computer Society (BCS). This is how I approach Livery Companies and Guilds, and hence why I believe that the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) may be useful to me, it will hopefully help me to help my clients, through professionalism, cooperation, coopertition and inter-independence.

I believe that knowing myself as I’ve shown above (and this doesn’t mean that I have finished “knowing myself”), I can place myself in the context of life, and try to maximise my efficiency by noticing my flow of ideology in the various spheres. For instance - I have a love of predicate and “semantic” logic, and that permeates my political ideas of human rights, my religious ideas of comparative religion, my technical ideas of software/web development and my business ideas of organisation structure. I’m certainly not saying that everyone should have these exact ideas, because they may not fit for everyone, but the idea that an abstract ideology flows and permeates every aspect of life is certainly an important and universal concept.

Footnotes

1. For instance see the book The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life by Thomas W. Malone. Also see a rather interesting book called “The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
   “, which also details how software development is similar to (or at least should be similar to) the guild system.
2. Interestingly the Queen, in Scotland, is the head of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland - which is different to the Anglican Organisation in Scotland which is called the Scottish Episcopal Church. I don’t believe that this causes any arguments, and generally the Anglicans/Episcopalians, Presbyterians/United-Reformed-Church and Methodists get on well with each other in England, Wales and Scotland.
3. No doubt, this demands another blog post, but I’ll try not to get too political on my technical-orientated blog *wink*