Have trade associations and specialist guilds had their day?

I am not a lover of 'closed shops', cartels, lobbyists or exclusivity of most shapes and forms.

I have probably been fairly singular in the way I have tried to argue against the usefulness of the resident landscape and garden design associations in the United Kingdom.

Privately I have been told that I am way off beam with my criticism's but then again, you would expect to hear that from those who run the associations and 'closed clubs' that I have highlighted.

BALI and the APL have promised change and the Landscape Institute have no choice to implement change if they are to survive.

Seth Godin, for so long a much followed web evangelist has put into words something I have been trying to get across for such a long time.

In his post - Beware of trade guilds maintaining the status quo - Godin argues that 'You don't have to like change to take advantage of it.'

Godin says: "Whenever a trade association raises the barricades and tries to lobby their way into maintaining the status quo, they are doing their members a disservice.

"Instead of spending time and insight and effort reinventing what they do and organizing for a better future, the members are lulled into a sense of security that somehow, somehow, the future will be just like today."

....what is more, members have to pay for that 'sense of security' - a security that is little more than smoke and mirros.