Building guilds secured large public housing contracts amid postwar expansionary policy
Evidence
In the throes of this expansionary policy, building guilds were able to bid on housing contracts. In September 1920, the Ministry of Health approved contracts with the Manchester and London guilds for a total of more than 800 workingclass houses. By November, more than eighty local guild committees of buildingtrade workers had organized for work. By December, “contracts involving the erection of more than a thousand houses had been accepted and were waiting the approval of the Ministry of Health” (Cox 1921, 780). — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 438
Categorization
- XREF: Concrete scale data on guild housing contracts connects to how state subsidies enabled worker-controlled production, relevant to modern cooperative housing policy discussions. — connects to: Postwar state support briefly enabled guild socialism before austerity funds were cut; Worker guilds thrived in industries requiring little capital and where capitalism had failed housing