And if you are willing to be more generous (as the author and I are) these protective societies of workers and merchants were an early step toward free market economies unencumbered by lazy landed gentry. Compare the history of Spain and France during this era to that of Germany and Holland.
If your argument is that exclusive initiatory societies were an improvement on hereditary nobility rule then you won't get much of a push back from me. However, are they better than constitutional democratic republics?
I don't actually have a clear answer to that question. I mean, I have a feeling that I have more chance of being initiated into a guild than I do being promoted to nobility. That potential for inclusion goes a long way, much like the oft-cited American dream where even the poor think they have a chance at being a millionaire. And our current democratic system doesn't seem to be adequately controlling the quality of our society.
As I mentioned, it is actually a very complex question. I just recommend people to be skeptical. Societies that form around keeping some thing secret except for initiated members for the purposes of exclusivity should be treated with a large dose of skepticism.
But let's not forget that fraud and incompetence are extremely common across history. And also that the very concept of universities derived from guilds.
So in a sense we do still have, and rely on, a guild system today.
The concept of having the number of businesses artificially limited also isn't gone in modern Germany: notaries and medical practices are allocated licenses based on regional population densities. As I understand it, taxi medallions are another example in the US (not sure how this works in Germany). Of course the idea in this case is to encourage specialists to spread out throughout the country rather than bunch up in the most lucrative population centers.