[HN Gopher] Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Gui...
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Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master: The Medieval Guild (2018)
Author : squircle
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-08-04 15:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.philosophicalsociety.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.philosophicalsociety.org)
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Journeyman sounds very much like a postdoc. (the traditional
| costumes are rare, but I've seen a few journeymen all togged out*
| for going "auf der Walz" over the last couple of decades)
|
| * eg https://www.wirholzbauer.ch/de/magazine-
| online/detail/?tx_hb...
|
| more on the topic:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
| normie3000 wrote:
| "auf der Walz" auf Englisch?
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| "on tour"?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years#:~:text=In%20.
| .. (EDIT: or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41159370 )
|
| Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUslm_F0niA
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I guess in English for the upper classes The Grand Tour
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour probably the
| plebes only go on tour.
| baruz wrote:
| Universities began as medieval guilds (Latin universitas =
| guild corporate body) around cathedral schools, composed of
| teachers (in the northern cathedral schools) or students (in
| Italy). The university's grant of a masters degree would allow
| you to perform as a teacher (Latin magister) in any other
| cathedral school.
| geertj wrote:
| These levels are are still used in the US today for eg
| electricians and other licensed trades. Interesting that they
| survived for so long.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2018)
|
| Some previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24473869
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Of course, the tag line for the classic Pragmatic Programmer book
| originally was not _your journey to mastery_ , but _from
| journeyman to master_.
|
| So much more apt.
|
| https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-2...
| Simon_ORourke wrote:
| These are still very much in use in Germany today. I met a few of
| these guys in Berlin looking for a couch to crash on for a few
| days, all carpenters and very funny guys.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journeyman_years
| Daub wrote:
| I believe that German education is more pragmatic than (for
| example) British. The Germans invented the polytechnic,
| designed to teach practical skills. The British converted most
| of their polytechnics to universities, to their detriment. They
| now have a bunch of low functioning universities and have lost
| all their trade schools.
| craz8 wrote:
| Ha! I went to a British polytechnic. There wasn't a lot of
| very practical degrees ( there were some though), but there
| was a lot of hands on computer work in my Computer and
| Communications degree
|
| It is strange on a resume listing a university I never
| technically went to, but now only Wikipedia remembers! And I
| was there before Thor destroyed it in a movie
| hnbad wrote:
| That used to be the idea. University used to be much more
| broad with students often being encouraged to join courses in
| other disciplines to broaden their knowledge. Then came the
| Bachelor/Master system and suddenly you had to take exams at
| the end of lectures, participation was tracked and you'd be
| failed with no recourse for missing more than twice,
| everything had to fit into the narrowly defined "modules" you
| had to pick from (if there was any choice at all) and it all
| just started feeling like a continuation from school rather
| than a genuine gateway to scientific expert knowledge. I hope
| things have improved but the university system is a lot more
| school-like compared to the free-for-all it was twenty years
| ago.
|
| Meanwhile because of degree inflation trades for a long time
| had such a bad reputation they can't find any apprentices but
| also can't afford the lucrative wages and perks promised by
| international megacorps.
|
| There's also a very strong cultural and class divide between
| the three tracks of "highschool", especially _Gymnasium_ (the
| highest tier -- doesn 't have anything to do with sports) and
| the other two as only the former allows you to graduate with
| an _Abitur_ which allows you to study at a university (unless
| you want to take night school classes to earn the same
| qualification with more time and effort). It 's kinda like
| public vs private schools, except less explicitly about
| wealth and heritage.
| foldr wrote:
| > I hope things have improved but the university system is
| a lot more school-like compared to the free-for-all it was
| twenty years ago.
|
| I agree with this point, but all of the specific things you
| mention were already well in place twenty years ago (e.g.
| modular courses).
| Daub wrote:
| > the university system is a lot more school-like compared
| to the free-for-all it was twenty years ago.
|
| Agreed... it is. This is a loss and a gain.
|
| In the 1980s, as a foundation (19 yo) student of a certain
| London art school, I was taken to Hyde Park for 'drawing
| lessons' and given drug-laced cake by my lecturer, without
| my knowing. Student-staff sexual relationships were common
| and it was not unusual for lecturers to be absent the
| entire semester yet still be paid. Staff rollover was
| practically non-existent: a job was Ipso-facto a job for
| life, regardless of your performance. Pertinently, the
| program was pass/fail.
|
| As a university lecturer, I now work in a credit-based
| system. Everything is accountable and the layers of
| administration have quadrupled.
|
| Neither system is perfect. In the end, I believe that it is
| the faith and energy of those who deliver the system to be
| the deciding factor.
| zoogeny wrote:
| It is important to note, especially given the positive view given
| to the guild system in this article, that it is written on a
| masonic philosophy page. The freemasons have a long and esoteric
| history that should be viewed with some skepticism. Secret
| fraternal orders have a sketchy history.
|
| George Carlin has a famous comedy bit where he states "It's a big
| club and you ain't in it" [1]. My own feeling is that guilds of
| all sorts prioritize exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing
| power on some select few. As the article states "Master's were
| few and far between". This is similar to how luxury brands
| maintain their high value: exclusivity. The standardization and
| guarantees of quality seem to be secondary to the pyramid scheme
| nature of ascension within these organizations (in the same way
| that the quality of luxury goods is often secondary to their
| exclusivity). It reminds me in some ways of the concept of
| "familiars" in vampire lore, humans who willingly toil away for
| their masters hoping one day to be elevated to the same level.
|
| It is a complex topic because of the positives and negatives of
| these systems being highly intertwined. To this day in Canada
| there is an apprenticeship system for trades. However, it is no
| longer an inner circle of masters deciding who gets the special
| status, it is a regional qualification body with clear
| guidelines, training, testing and certification.
|
| As a society we haven't at all gotten away from the degenerate
| aspects of guilds. Think of the association with the
| "golf/country club" crowd. Or things like the Skull and Bones [2]
| type organizations at elite universities. Or when people joke
| about the Illuminati. This article is arguing _for_ that by
| presenting a rose-tinted-glasses view of the past.
|
| 1.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso&ab_channel=SkyEc...
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones
| waveBidder wrote:
| Historically, guilds were first and foremost a tool to enforce
| monopoly power on the part of masters against anyone else
| trying to enter the market (and against eachother to maintain
| monopoly pricing and supply). Luddites were actually just doing
| what guilds normally did.
| robwwilliams wrote:
| Agreed, but parent article makes the good point that the
| Hansa League and guilds also pushed back very effectively on
| the nobility in Germany snd Northern Europe (Bergen Norway
| was in the Hansa League).
|
| And if you are willing to be more generous (as the author and
| I are) these protective societies of workers and merchants
| were an early step toward free market economies unencumbered
| by lazy landed gentry. Compare the history of Spain and
| France during this era to that of Germany and Holland.
| zoogeny wrote:
| > guilds also pushed back very effectively on the nobility
| in Germany snd Northern Europe
|
| If your argument is that exclusive initiatory societies
| were an improvement on hereditary nobility rule then you
| won't get much of a push back from me. However, are they
| better than constitutional democratic republics?
|
| I don't actually have a clear answer to that question. I
| mean, I have a feeling that I have more chance of being
| initiated into a guild than I do being promoted to
| nobility. That _potential_ for inclusion goes a long way,
| much like the oft-cited American dream where even the poor
| think they have a chance at being a millionaire. And our
| current democratic system doesn 't seem to be adequately
| controlling the quality of our society.
|
| As I mentioned, it is actually a very complex question. I
| just recommend people to be skeptical. Societies that form
| around keeping some thing secret except for initiated
| members for the purposes of exclusivity should be treated
| with a large dose of skepticism.
| o11c wrote:
| According to people who complained about guilds, sure.
|
| But let's not forget that fraud and incompetence are
| _extremely_ common across history. And also that the very
| concept of _universities_ derived from guilds.
|
| So in a sense we _do_ still have, and rely on, a guild system
| today.
| hnbad wrote:
| In a way it's also simply a network of trust. Sure, you
| didn't have many masters but journeymen carried the
| reputation of their master and that transferred when
| seeking employment elsewhere as well as when eventually
| becoming masters themselves.
|
| The concept of having the number of businesses artificially
| limited also isn't gone in modern Germany: notaries and
| medical practices are allocated licenses based on regional
| population densities. As I understand it, taxi medallions
| are another example in the US (not sure how this works in
| Germany). Of course the idea in this case is to encourage
| specialists to spread out throughout the country rather
| than bunch up in the most lucrative population centers.
| hnbad wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're bring Luddites into this. Ludd and
| his followers were opposing the industrialization of their
| professions because it meant they were losing their jobs to
| machines while the factory owners were continuing to build on
| the wealth they helped create. Technological progress is
| still usually spoken about in abstract and misleading terms
| of "increasing productivity" as if it were about reducing the
| workload of the worker when instead the worker's hours remain
| the same and a reduced workload just translates into
| "redundancies", i.e. the workers don't gain anything from
| being "more productive", they actually stand to lose their
| jobs entirely because fewer workers are necessary for the
| same output.
| waveBidder wrote:
| The behavior of smashing their competitor's means of
| production was typical of guilds, and iirc it was one of
| the last instances of guilds acting to defend their
| interest in England. I'm more sympathetic to the Luddites
| than most guilds since it's around the time the
| labor/capital split in the productive class actually
| happened.
| motohagiography wrote:
| not sure what the issue is unless someone had fallen down the
| rabbit hole of anti-masonry. FOSS projects could learn a great
| deal about how to run sustainable organizations from
| fraternities, and their hierarchies and lodge structure is
| likely a more stable and sustainable form than 501c non-
| profits.
|
| if you want to know about freemasonry, consider the quality of
| their enemies.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I think there is "anti-masonry" and what I suggested as
| skepticism. For example, nepotism and cronyism aren't de-
| facto bad (e.g. a father handing the family business to his
| son or a person hiring a trusted and loyal friend). But if
| someone is a member of the "cronyism promotion society" and
| they write an article extolling the benefits of cronyism then
| that opinion ought to be digested with a large grain of salt.
| It is worth pointing out that there are some negative aspects
| to cronyism, just as there are negative aspects to secretive
| initiative societies.
|
| At it's core, this article is a stealth motte and bailey
| argument. It points out the benefits of guilds (where there
| is a legitimate argument to be made about skill transfer and
| quality of work) to support a deeper ideology about
| hierarchical structures of society. If one wants to make the
| argument that the ritualization present in free masonry is a
| net benefit to X, then present that argument directly.
| diffxx wrote:
| Late Carlin got far too misanthropic for my taste.
|
| Like all things, we need balance. This is a good argument
| against guilds, but there are positive aspects of the system
| too. Imagine a world that was truly a free for all -- one in
| which there were no trusted authorities in any field. I believe
| such a society would quickly devolve into a dystopia and
| collapse.
|
| From my perspective, the big problem is when there is no
| competition among guilds and the guild leaders wield
| disproportionate societal power. That is how you end up with
| oppressive oligarchy, which honestly is a reasonable
| description of the global order right now. My hope though is
| that we are better able to organize and compete against the
| current oligarchic order.
| zoogeny wrote:
| > I believe such a society would quickly devolve into a
| dystopia and collapse.
|
| The main argument in favor of
| totalitarianism/authoritarianism is pretty much always law &
| order. And the main argument against the prevailing power
| structure is pretty much always freedom (e.g. from oppression
| and/or protection of fairness in competition). So the
| question is often, what is more important to you, order or
| freedom? How much freedom would you give up for order, and
| how much order would you give up for freedom?
|
| However, guilds aren't the only way to promote
| structure/order. As I said, the system in Canada is
| regionalized through state run organizations which are
| answerable to a democratic process. It is not through some
| secret cabal of "Masters" who make arbitrary decisions. We
| can achieve order without requiring esoteric fraternal
| societies. For all of their flaws, constitutional democratic
| republics offer a much better system of accountability.
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| > My own feeling is that guilds of all sorts prioritize
| exclusivity for the purposes of bestowing power on some select
| few. As the article states "Master's were few and far between".
|
| One possible reason could simply be there's a lot more _future_
| impact to granting someone the final title. If you proclaim
| someone a "Maestro of C++," then suddenly all the other C++
| laborers will get a clear signal that whatever that person is
| doing is implicitly _also_ what they should do, if they want to
| move up the ladder.
|
| Beyond that, the top jobs usually comes with required work to
| train the next generation. So this person would heavily
| contribute, both implicitly and explicitly, to the future of
| the C++ guild.
|
| Considering that impact in combination with how hard it would
| be to undo the decision, it's not surprising that many
| organizations might be cautious about deciding to hand someone
| that title.
|
| > clear guidelines, training, testing and certification.
|
| This makes sense, too. For any organization that wants to
| _stay_ in the business of handing out these titles for the
| long-term, meaningful transparency is a good way to go about
| it.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > the top jobs usually comes with required work to train the
| next generation
|
| Not for free. The reason the system worked back then is that
| apprentices were basically just a source of extremely labour
| if not indentured servants outright. They were entirely
| dependent on their master if they wanted to advance their
| career.
| Daub wrote:
| I believe that the main function of guilds was as proto trade
| unions: to protect those with a craft.
|
| The differentiation of craft and art originated in Italy. It
| was they who developed the academies as a panic response to a
| perceived lack of Italian geniuses (this was following the
| death of Michelangelo). Following that France developed their
| own academies as a means to develop a national style separate
| to Italy.
| detourdog wrote:
| My mom started a "guild" in 1970 with a linguist. This was the
| counter culture optimistic term for a collective of like minded
| people bonded by craftsmanship and commerce.
|
| The guild outlived her.
|
| https://www.artisansguildgallery.com/history.html#/
|
| The linguist was out of his mind.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loglan
| nairboon wrote:
| > George Carlin has a famous comedy bit where he states "It's a
| big club and you ain't in it"
|
| Just for the record, the club that Carlin is referring to, is
| not some professional guild. Those were difficult, but not
| impossible to join.
|
| He's referring to a very tiny minority of ultra-rich people.
| That's the club that usually doesn't take new members.
| danjl wrote:
| I have often felt that programming would do well to have a guild-
| like system. Current job titles and years of experience do not
| really help to differentiate the quality of individuals. There's
| also the intangible benefits of trust and quality that come from
| the system. I'd love to write "craft" code, that is about
| producing quality code that elegantly solves real problems.
| Especially in comparison to the current trend of writing code as
| quickly as possible, with very little regard for quality from
| folks outside of the dev team.
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| I love the idea.
|
| I think some people may fear the concept that their years of
| experience are just not equal to someone else's same years of
| experience.
| Aeolun wrote:
| That's no surprise. If I were not very good after 30 years of
| experience I'd also hope to not be judged by that.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I've seen more than a handful of "senior" developers with a
| decade or more experience that were just Jr/Mid with a
| senior title. I think the problem is that relatively tight
| pay bands combined with certain expectations of title
| create practical issues in practice.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| There used to be (and maybe still is?) an apprenticeship scheme
| for software development in Germany. By reputation it produced
| some excellent developers.
|
| The Anglophone thing of having developers do a 3-year degree in
| Computer Science (an almost entirely unrelated discipline from
| Software Development) is ridiculous in comparison.
| bane wrote:
| In the U.S. at least, the standard undergraduate degree is
| typically 4 years. Most universities offer a range of degrees
| in the field outside of C.S. which are very popular as they
| are now seen as both easier to obtain but also more relevant
| in the workforce. These include software engineering, systems
| engineering, information technology, and increasingly just
| plain old software development.
| hnbad wrote:
| I'm not entirely sure what you mean.
|
| Computer Science is _Informatik_ in Germany. Prior to the
| Bachelor /Master system it was a _Magister_ study meaning you
| 'd usually have to take a second major and a minor or two
| minors alongside it. Typically you'd either study
| _Wirtschaftsinformatik_ (business computer science), which
| was focussed on computer science applied to business
| processes, _Technische Informatik_ (technically used to be a
| _Diplom_ study I think), which was more focussed on
| interacting with hardware, or _Theoretische Informatik_ ,
| which is more similar to the pure abstract computer science
| and more concerned with higher mathematics than applying the
| knowledge to build real software.
|
| There is also a recognized trade called _Fachinformatiker_ (I
| think there 's another one called _Anwendungsinformatiker_
| which is more similar to _Technische Informatik_ ) which is a
| job training of applied computer science, involving a mix of
| classes in English, computer science, mathematics, business
| and other subjects. This still exists and IMO it's the best
| way to build a foundation for a career path as an application
| developer.
|
| The university studies are more useful for specialist jobs or
| larger corporations that insist on university degrees. If you
| have broad knowledge despite having a university degree
| rather than the job qualification, it's mostly because of
| things you did outside the university track itself.
|
| There is no apprenticeship track I'm aware of like there is
| for traditional trades that have an
| apprentice/journeyman/master (Lehrling/Geselle/Meister)
| distinction, e.g. carpentry, mechanics, hairdressing.
| nairboon wrote:
| > There is no apprenticeship track I'm aware of like there
| is for traditional trades that have an
| apprentice/journeyman/master (Lehrling/Geselle/Meister)
| distinction, e.g. carpentry, mechanics, hairdressing.
|
| Something like this kind of exists in Switzerland, even in
| two forms:
|
| One track goes like: normal Lehre -> EFZ, as a Geselle ->
| eidgenossischer Fachausweise and later -> eidgenossisches
| Diplom (Meister)
|
| or in case of a Lehre with Berufsmatura: Lehre -> EFZ + BM
| -> Bachelor FH -> Master FH (Meister)
| Tomte wrote:
| > Prior to the Bachelor/Master system it was a Magister
| study
|
| Maybe at some universities. Usually it was a diploma study,
| with a minor (often mathematics or electrical engineering
| -- I did linguistics).
| tstenner wrote:
| The two specializations for Fachinformatiker are FI/AE
| (Fachinformatiker Anwendungsentwicklerung, i.e. software
| development) and FI/SI (Fachinformatiker Systemintegration,
| that is as you already guessed system integration).
| wirrbel wrote:
| > By reputation it produced some excellent developers
|
| It goes both ways, excellent developers, quite often people
| who would also have excelled in a computer science program
| (but failed because bad grades in foreign languages prevented
| them to get admitted, etc.)
|
| But you also have those that struggle to adopt something
| other than the Visual Basic they learned in their
| apprenticeship.
|
| > The Anglophone thing of having developers do a 3-year
| degree in Computer Science (an almost entirely unrelated
| discipline from Software Development) is ridiculous in
| comparison.
|
| Is that different from Germany? Most devs have completed some
| kind of university degree (or "Hochschule").
|
| If I think of the quality of Software-Engineering
| instructions I have seen in universities they were always so
| outdated, that I wonder whether its actually something that
| can be studied in such an institution in a way that makes
| sense.
|
| For example I had a lecturer who was ADAMANT that in every
| software-engineering organisation, Nassi-Schneidermann
| Diagrams were drawn prior to implementation
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassi-Shneiderman_diagram ).
|
| He taught a C++ course which basically was C (with printf and
| scanf having been replaced by std::cin and std::cout). Of
| course it was outdated material and if someone had cared
| enough they could have created new material, but at what pace
| and at what frequency?
|
| It makes much more sense to teach concepts, that that's what
| computer science curricula do, then add some engineering
| concepts in the mix (requirements engineering, validation /
| verification) and you have someone who can pick up tech on
| the job quickly.
| ragnaruss wrote:
| I think they key part of this is it provides a foundation for
| having a Licensing Board for our industry. Combining requiring
| someone licensed to sign off on work where they take actual
| legal responsibility, with changes to liability laws and
| insurance for business when they don't use them would go a long
| way to improving the quality crisis in our industry.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I'm not sure business would largely tolerate the rigor (and
| expense) that would come from such liability assignment in
| practice. Too many businesses will take short cuts, or decide
| on shortest path, and too many mid/jr devs with senior titles
| who don't necessarily know the difference.
|
| Nothing more fun that having a security audit of a codebase
| and seeing how many relatively dumb security issues are
| present... from SQL injection, to authentication bypass in a
| "modern" application.
| danjl wrote:
| Like any certified engineering discipline.
| wirrbel wrote:
| In Germany there are programs, its a 3 year program and one
| works in a company and attends classes in a school for theory
| aspects. So for 3 years you are apprentice, after that
| journeyman. I assume that you cannot become Master (Meister)
| for that career path, but probably you are then qualified to
| attend a college to get a Computer Science or a Software
| engineering degree.
|
| One should not underestimate how the "Journeyman -> Master"
| step is overall also one of gate-keeping. My cousin did his
| "Meister" as a car mechanic and it was costly (compared to for
| example getting a university degree in Germany which basically
| is for free) and he needed to do it, so that he could own his
| own repair shop (otherwise he would have had to hire a
| "Meister"). In his Meister-Training he was also exposed to a
| lot of legal regulations and some training in book-keeping etc,
| which of course is valuable to someone to whom math never was
| intuitive.
| kqr wrote:
| > So for 3 years you are apprentice, after that journeyman.
|
| What's nutty is that journeyman usually means "capable of a
| day's work without supervision" (hence the name: journee-man)
| and I doubt three years of work is really sufficient for that
| in complex fields like software development.
|
| Granted, I worked with unusually skilled people for much of
| my early carreer, but I didn't stop feeling like an
| apprentice for at least seven years if I include education.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I think it depends heavily on what you are working on. The
| vast majority of software development is effectively web
| forms connected to a simple backend/database. The web
| equivalent of MS-Access or Lotus Notes development.
|
| I mean, you _can_ do a lot more, and many are... It just
| cannot be underestimated how much low hanging fruit
| software dev there is in practice.
| southwesterly wrote:
| I kinda like the idea of apprentice --> journeyman -->
| master. Especially applied to crafts, but more mechanical /
| technical aspects too.
| sgt101 wrote:
| This structure is good for engagements that have long duration
| (like >3mths) and high intensity.. a lead, an heir and a spare
| covering a key "role" means that you have continuity if someone
| goes sick or gets another job. The project can just keep
| rolling along!
| ggm wrote:
| Michael Polyani is quoted as making a comparison to guilds and
| scientists by Richard Rhodes in his book on the Atom Bomb. You
| become a scientist when other scientists accept you as a
| scientist. The publication side of things is a bit of a
| formalism, the critical point is acceptance into the craft. A
| quite a-scientific approach in some ways.
|
| That was of course in a prior age. Last century, in the dawn of
| Particle Physics, but I think he wrote of science in general in
| that time, not just Physicists.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Are there any good references on how this model, if it existed,
| was different in other cultures and societies?
| lemurien wrote:
| This looks like the ,,compagnon du devoir et du tour de France"
| in France.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Devoir
|
| They learn the basics and then they make a tour of France to
| refine their skills. They are required to move at least every six
| months.
|
| I know a couple of them from my family and this looks impressive.
| If this existed for software engineering, this would be the best
| training.
| ImageXav wrote:
| The most interesting point in this article for me lies towards
| the end: "the role of the Guild was not to form rules, mores,
| regulations, and laws with respect to their crafts; their role
| was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new individual, to
| instill in them the idea of standards, quality, consistency, and
| perfection".
|
| A common complaint nowadays is that it is very difficult for
| juniors with no experience to get hired, unless they have a
| degree from a prestigious university, and even then that's not
| often a guarantee. It seems that companies are more averse than
| guilds to take the risk of training someone up to industry
| standards.
|
| I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to create
| schemes that encourage learning with a similar system. Mentors
| can sometimes accomplish this role, but that relation is far more
| informal.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| > their role was to introduce a system of art or craft to a new
| individual, to instill in them the idea of standards, quality,
| consistency, and perfection".
|
| I always thought that their goals was controlling the supply of
| goods and services to maintain high prices and to prevent
| competition from ruining profit margins (of course not
| necessarily universally bad for consumers since guilds
| generally still maintained some sort of minimum quality
| standards).
|
| > than guilds to take the risk of training someone up to
| industry standards.
|
| Because as an apprentice you were effectively bound to your
| master and had to work him for a paltry wage for a number years
| just to get a chance to advance your career. Since workers are
| now free to leave whenever they want and have no obligations to
| the company that spent money/resources to train them those
| companies have few incentives to do that.
|
| > I believe that it would be very beneficial to society to
| create schemes that encourage learning with a similar system.
|
| We might as well bring back indentured servitude while we're at
| it? Otherwise who is going to pay for this?
| ImageXav wrote:
| I don't really see why a leap to indentured servitude is
| necessary here. There are obviously many other ways of
| implementing a training relationship - see the other comments
| re. how it is done in Germany.
|
| The point I'm making is that society as a whole is worse off
| if companies are too risk averse to hire and train juniors up
| to a certain level of quality. This results in too few people
| capable of doing a specific, presumably valuable, job well.
| The consequences of this are a society that underperforms
| it's true potential in the long run. In monetary terms, as
| you raise the question, that means that less taxable value is
| generated. So society as a whole pays the consequence.
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| In many ways guilds were also difficult to deal with.
|
| As example, in some towns peasants were not allowed to smith
| their own tools and had to travel to the city and buy the
| expensive tools from the guild.
| penguin_booze wrote:
| > The word Hansa is Low German for "convoy"
|
| Ah, so Lufthansa (the German flag carrier) means Air Convoy.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| >> Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master
|
| Those are now more properly referred to as Apprentice,
| Journeyperson and _Main_.
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