Guilded Age of Politics

by Andrea Graham

In Church yesterday, we joined a class studying from the Vander Laan series, which gave us a history lesson on guilds in ancient Rome, particularly in Asia minor. These “Trade unions” as the teacher watered them down to, each had a patron god or goddess, and if you wanted to practice a particular trade, for instance, carpentry, you would be pressured to join the Carpenter’s guild, and sacrifice (worship) the patron god of Carpentry. If you refused, the guild would use their collective muscle to ensure you did not make it as a Carpenter. If you attempted to go it alone, at the very least, no one would bring you business in fear of angering the Guild (or it’s god, but same difference to my thinking)

Think guilds are gone? By Heaven, no. We’ve even expanded them into the political arena. We have not one, but two politics guilds in this country. The name of one starts with a “D” and the other starts with an “R” And it seems they have four paths to membership:

What effect has the guild mentality had on modern politics? Adam has the story

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