This paper argues that historical research on late medieval and early modern craft guilds fails to escape teleological and anachronistic views, including when they are addressed as commons or ‘institutions for collective action’. These present-day conceptual lenses do not only create idealized views on guilds, but also of the contexts in which they operated, especially the state and the market. This is especially the case with neo-institutional views on the commons, which fall back on a transhistorical rational actor, who can choose between three options for the allocation of resources and surpluses, namely the state, the market and the common. The paper shows that guilds were fundamentally entangled with both the state and the market and that their ethic implied a less utilitarian and instrumental attitude towards natural resources. The consequence of this is that the history of the guilds offers different lessons to present-day commoners than those implied by present-day research. With an eye at launching a reflection on that, I argue in favour of a cosmopolitical perspective, which invites to take fundamentally different worldviews seriously. This includes questioning our own conceptual and analytical abstractions like the state, the market and the individual, up to and including the very distinction between nature and society or nature and politics, which are at the very basis of modern science itself.

本文认为，对中世纪晚期和现代手工艺品行业协会的历史研究未能逃脱目的论和过时的观点，包括当它们被视为公地或“集体行动机构”时。这些当今的概念镜头不仅在行会上创造了理想的观点，而且在行事的环境中，特别是在国家和市场方面，都创造了理想的观点。新制度对公地的看法尤其如此，这种看法落在了跨历史的理性行为者身上，后者可以在三种分配资源和剩余资源的方案中进行选择，即国家，市场和共同体。该文件表明，行会从根本上与国家和市场纠缠在一起，其道德观念暗示着对自然资源的功利性和工具性态度较弱。这样做的结果是，行会的历史为当今平民提供了不同于当前研究所隐含的经验教训。为了对此进行反思，我主张采用世界政治的观点，该观点要求认真对待根本不同的世界观。这包括质疑我们自己的概念和分析抽象，例如国家，市场和个人，直至并包括自然与社会或自然与政治之间的区别，而这正是现代科学本身的基础。这邀请我们认真对待根本不同的世界观。这包括质疑我们自己的概念和分析抽象，例如国家，市场和个人，直至并包括自然与社会或自然与政治之间的区别，而这正是现代科学本身的基础。这邀请我们认真对待根本不同的世界观。这包括质疑我们自己的概念和分析抽象，例如国家，市场和个人，直至并包括自然与社会或自然与政治之间的区别，而这正是现代科学本身的基础。