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What was the purpose of John Ruskinās Guild of St. George?
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John Ruskin
John Ruskin, tinted lithograph published in London, c. 1880.
John Ruskin established the Guild of St. George in 1871 as a pastoral community intended to promote his idealistic social causes.1
The guild served as a practical application of his anticapitalist social model, which sought to counter the perceived degradation caused by industrial pollution and the materialist assumptions of classical economics. By fostering a neofeudalist social order, Ruskin believed that individuals could lead lives of greater aesthetic fulfillment, returning to a society that prioritized moral and spiritual values over the utilitarianism of the industrial age.1