I think they potentially could be a good thing in general *provided* none of them are ever awarded any kind of monopoly. Fraternal societies used to be very useful social organisations, they were basically like those jewish self-help groups except for whites. Each chapter was a tight knit community providing it's members with income insurance, life insurance, health insurance etc. The tight knit part and the ethnic homogeneity kept members from welfare whoring. If there was a massive disaster a chapter couldn't handle, like a mine collapse killing half it's members, the other chapters stepped in to help, but in general things were organised at as local a level as possible. I'd love to see something like that again, but I know if anyone tried to start one it'd be criminalised asap.