[triceratops]

Guilds reflect the societies they are in. Society had more bigotry in the past, and so did the various institutions within it.

Also, it's weird that you call out guilds for being discriminatory but then give an example of discrimination in employment. We have fair employment laws to prevent this type of behavior and arguably could have "fair guild membership" laws if it became a problem.

It's fair to argue against guilds for driving up prices by limiting membership.

[rayiner]

You’re overlooking that the non-white population is much younger (the median white person is 42, the median Hispanic person is 28) and they are driving all population growth in the country. (The absolute number of non-hispanic whites started declining in 2010). Given those changing demographics, when guilds act to limit membership (as you acknowledge they do) the bulk of those excluded are going to be non-whites.

And employment discrimination laws won’t solve the problem because the discriminatory effect arises from the legal practice of protecting existing members at the expense of potential new entrants.

[triceratops]

I proposed guild discrimination laws similar to employment discrimination laws, making it illegal for guilds to exclude on the basis of protected categories.

[rayiner]

That wouldn’t help. In a country where the non-white population is rapidly growing and the white population is shrinking, and also is trying to catch up in terms of education and income, the population of guild members will be whiter than the population of potential new members. Limiting supply (favoring existing members over potential new members) will in practice disadvantage non-whites.

There was a very clear example of this recently in Chicago. Lori Lightfoot explained that she wouldn’t pursue police funding cuts because under the union contracts, cuts would have to be made from newer employees first. (Last in First out.) That would mean that 2/3 of the cuts would be Black and Hispanic officers, even though less than half of the overall force is Black and Hispanic.

[triceratops]

Oh interesting. That's a good point.