Samuel George Hobson, often known as S. G. Hobson, was a theorist of guild socialism.
Career
Born in Bessbrook, County Armagh, Hobson was given a Quaker education in Saffron Walden and then Sidcot, Somerset. He began writing for the ILP newspaper, Labour Leader, and in 1900 was elected to the Fabian Society"s executive. In the 1906, he stood as an "independent Labour" candidate in Rochdale.
Throughout this period, Hobson had been involved in various profitable activities, managing a banana plantation and editing an investment journal.
Eventually, he attempted to organise a builders" guild, but this was not a success. Hobson wrote a memoir entitled "Pilgrim to the Left - Memoirs of a Modern Revolutionist" which was published by Longmans, Green & Company in 1938.
Politics
Moving to Cardiff, he became an active socialist, joining first the Fabian Society and then becoming a founder member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Hobson stood for the ILP in the 1895 general election at Bristol East, becoming a member of the Bristol Socialist Society for some years. By this point, he was keen to go beyond the Labour Party"s Parliamentary activity and create an actual socialist society.
From 1906, Hobson developed a theory of a socialism based on guilds, a form of workers" self-management inspired by Mediaeval forms of organisation. He coined the term "guild socialism," and in 1914, his writing for the publication was compiled as National Guilds: an Inquiry into the Wage System and a Way Out.