SOURCE: "Professor Laski and Political Science," in The Political Quarterly, Vol. XXI, No. 3, July-September, 1950, pp. 301-10.

[In the following essay, Soltau examines the foundations of Laski's political thinking, and the applications of his philosophy to various realms of political life.)

This is not, and cannot be, a full critical analysis of Laski's work. That will necessitate a detachment still made impossible by affection and sense of loss. All we can hope to do is to offer an inevitably subjective impression of what were the dominant aspects of his contribution to that subject to which he devoted his life.¹

The first thing that must strike the student of Laski's work is his extraordinary versatility and precocity. Historian and political scientist as he ultimately became, he began by spending some months between school and university working in Karl Pearson's biometric laboratory in University College, London. Once at Oxford, he first read zoology, thinking of making science his lifework; by the end of the year, he came to the conclusion that he was on the wrong track and went back to the subject in which he had won his exhibition to New College, history. Once within his true field, he cast his net very widely; his mastery of legal principles, his grasp of the implications of legal decisions and precedents were exceptional in one who was not a trained lawyer, and give to his thought a solid framework of hard fact often lacking in theorists. As to his precocity, he was barely twenty-four when his Problem of Sovereignty appeared, he published his Authority in the Modern State at twenty-six and at twenty-eight his Foundations of Sovereignty—books evidencing a breadth of reading, a range of knowledge, and a maturity of judgment that would be the envy of many an experienced scholar. And what is probably his greatest work,A Grammar of Politics, described by Sidney Webb as "the first full-dress study of politics since Sidgwick and the first to be made from the socialist point of view", came out when he was only just over thirty. At the same time, without going so far as to say with the Manchester Guardian that "he never quite fulfilled as a writer the high hopes that were aroused by his youthful brilliance", we believe it is true to say that in one sense he never went beyond those early works. Except for his later studies on the United States, there is little of permanent significance in his thought which is not to be found, at least in its essence, in those "Big Four" of 1917-25.

He declared in his inaugural lecture that he stood there "to plead for the study of politics in the terms of history", for "no system of politics was firmly grounded that was not securely built upon the past". Political science, "concerning itself with the life of men in relation to organized states", was essentially "an effort to codify the results of experience in the history of states, our conclusions remaining uncertain save as they are built upon historical analysis", so that "a true politics is above all a philosophy of history". This being so, it was logical that he should declare it his ambition "to make the School a great centre for the study of this aspect of political science". And yet it was not in that section of the field that he made his chief contribution. His studies of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ideas, penetrating and illuminating as they are, never became, to our great loss, the full-length survey of French political thought in the Classical Age which he had originally meant to include in the series he edited for Benn. And one may also regret that his chapters on Locke and Burke in his Home University Library textbook were never expanded into the authoritative intellectual biographies which his sympathetic understanding of those men and their significance would have given us. We are going to add that we could have sacrificed, for the sake of those major works which never came to life, some of his more "ephemeral" writings; but this would be to forget that many of these were written under a deep concern for his responsibility as an intellectual for the urgent problems of the day, a responsibility from which he dare not shrink. Refusing as he did all suggestions of office, because its compromises might interfere with his loyalty to the truth as he saw it, he rejected nevertheless any notion of philosophical detachment in an ivory tower; the place of the political scientist is in the market-place no less than in the study or lectureroom, and he always vehemently upheld the teacher's claim to make use of his full rights as a citizen. And he declared that "his experience of the labour movement helped to give meaning to his more academic effort and gave it a realism it could not have otherwise possessed, preventing it from dying in a vacuum".²

The starting point of all his thinking was not any abstract theorizing, but a burning sense of the injustices of our social and economic system,³ and with William Morris "he felt ashamed when he thought of the contrast between his happy working hours and the unpraised, unrewarded, monotonous drudgery which most men are condemned to". From this realization of the wrongness of things as they are he was led to the principle that became the starting point of his thinking, his profound belief in the final value of the ordinary man as a moral personality. "As soon as the individual, his consciousness, his worth, his reason are no longer granted as the most fundamental of all the laws of the moral order . . . there is no guarantee of justice. In the last resort, the thought and conscience of the individual are the only thought and conscience there are; perverse and foolish as our conscience may be, it is the only guide we have. It is at least ours, and freedom comes from acting on its demands. Our first duty is to be true to our conscience", and he quotes with approval Father Tyrrell's words: "man is driven to follow the dominant influence in his life, even if it should break the heart of the world".

It follows that society must be organized so as to give the individual the freedom necessary for the living of the good life, the essence of which is "to do by our free will those things which we feel to be worth while". Society will impose therefore the minimum of restraint on individual action.

Here we come upon one of few matters of fundamental importance on which Laski changed his mind. In the first edition of the Grammar of Politics, he defines liberty as "a positive thing" which "does not merely mean the absence of restraint", and he argues that certain restrictions—prohibition of murder, compulsion to educate one's children—do not involve "the frustration of one's creative impulses or a real deprivation of freedom. To compel obedience to rules of convenience which promote right living is not to make a man unfree. Wherever there are avenues of conduct which must be prohibited in the common interest, their removal from the sphere of unrestrained action need not constitute an invasion of liberty". But in the second edition (1937), following upon his restatement of the problem in his Liberty in the Modern State, he reverses his judgment, declaring that "the old view of liberty as absence of restraint can alone safeguard the personality of the citizen", and that the various rules discussed above are "right limitations of freedom" but must be recognized as limitations. "To permit such compulsion is to invade liberty, but not necessarily to destroy the end which liberty seeks to save."

This liberty involves equality; the two are not antithetic; "liberty only begins to operate significantly upon the plane of equality"; without the latter it is but "a name of noble sound and squalid result", for "equality supplies the basis out of which liberty comes to have a positive meaning". All are therefore equally entitled to those rights which are necessary to the leading of the good life; these rights are "natural", precisely because they are its necessary condition. And when challenged about his use of the term "natural", as applied to rights and laws, he replies that there is no other real foundation to moral obligation. "It is clear that once we admit that there is, in some given situation, a law which ought to be, we are admitting the existence of natural law. I myself take the view that, despite all the difficulties in the way of natural law, the need to postulate it as an essential part of the philosophy of political obligation cannot be avoided."

Laski sums up this question of the individual's position by declaring that "any society is ultimately tested by the manner in which it offers avenues of creative service to any who are willing to utilize them"—a definition of the good society which could hardly be bettered. But this definition reveals the abyss which lies between the ideal and the real. What true freedom is there for the great mass of toilers? Political freedom and equality become a farce when divorced from freedom in the economic and social spheres, "and the factor of consent is not likely to operate effectively in any society where there is serious inequality of economic conditions". "I came back from America", he wrote in the article already quoted, "Why I am a Marxist", "convinced that liberty has no meaning save in the context of equality, and I had begun to understand that equality also has no meaning unless the instruments of production are socially owned".

The pluralistic socialist society described so fully in the Grammar of Politics contained for him the solution of the age-long problem of reconciling the claims of society with those of the individual, both economically and politically, and this entailed as the first step towards its realization a frontal attack on the classical theory of the juristic monistic sovereign state. This attack, contained primarily in his first three works, but continued in all he wrote, forms perhaps the most original part of his political philosophy.⁴

It must be admitted that there are some unresolved contradictions in his theory of the state, nor is it altogether unfair to say that the state, expelled through one door, returns by another. His earlier writings reduce the state merely to one of a number of collective agencies, all with an equal claim on our allegiance, and without the right or capacity to act as a neutral arbiter in social and individual conflicts; but in Liberty he declares that since "men move differently to the attainment of conflicting desires, a coercive authority is necessary to define the terms on which that movement may legitimately proceed and to lay down the rules of permissible social behaviour"—an admission which leaves a wide margin of action for the despised authority. And when he declares that "the limits of freedom are set by the imminence of danger to social peace", he is surely re-endowing the state with wide discretionary powers.

The fact is, that, like all reformers, he needed a strong state as the instrument of his reforms. The socialism he advocated naturally extended rather than diminished the sphere of collective action, and this inevitably meant state action; nor could this socialism be established without "coercive authority". Even if it be true, as he wrote, that "the early states were typified by the policemen and the modern state by the administrator", it remains a fact that the administrator must be able to ensure the execution of his decrees. While many of us would probably agree with Laski that freedom remains possible under planning, in so far as in the long run planning means more equality of opportunity, greater security, less individual exploitation, it can scarcely be denied that the new socialism, even if it be not the old sovereignty writ large, seems far removed from the pluralist society of integrated groups.

In a recent article,⁵ Mr. Strachey rightly says that "the deepest layer of Laski's mind rested on nineteenth-century radical tradition", and one could describe his philosophy as a restatement of liberalism to meet the conditions of an industrial age after the impact of the socialist challenge. Did he not recommend Hobhouse's book on liberalism (in the Home University Library) as the best introduction to socialism? And in the Grammar of Politics he describes his thought as "a special adaptation of Bentham to the special needs of our time". It was Benthamism with a strong admixture of Marxism, and one wondered at times which element predominated; anyway, the blending was by no means perfect. He admitted "the broad truth of the Marxist philosophy" in its challenge to the liberal theory of the state, considered that "at bottom only the Marxian interpretation could explain the substance of law" and gave in an admirable little book (little in size, not in reality of content) one of the very ablest analyses of communism we possess. It was, of course, written nearly a quarter of a century ago, but its conclusion rings as true now as then: "the answer to the new faith is not the persecution of those who worship in its sanctuary, but the proof that those who do not share its convictions can scan a horizon not less splendid in the prospect it envisions, nor less compelling in the allegiance it invokes".⁶

It is nevertheless impossible for him to accept what were to Marx some of the logical implications of his doctrines.

The notion of dictatorship, by whomever exercised, was repellent to his liberal mind, and he claimed for all, including the communists, the freedom which they would have denied him. He urged indeed that "the judgment of Poplar should be as significant as that of Mayfair", but would have agreed with W. S. Gilbert that—

Hearts just as pure and fair
May beat in Belgrave Square
As in the purer air
Of Seven Dials.

One who tries to reconcile Marxism with freedom has a hard row to hoe and is inevitably involved at times in contradictions and inconsistencies.⁷ Had Laski been unconscious of these, the value of his advocacy of either principle would have been seriously jeopardized. But, as Mr. Strachey points out in the article already quoted, not only was he conscious of them, but he helped his readers to face them as one of the outstanding problems of our day. It is in fact, as Rossi says, one of the urgent needs of our time to "restudy Marxism and see if some of it cannot be salvaged and integrated into our democratic faith"; we have lost one of those best fitted to make the attempt.

Another department of political science in which he might have contributed much is that of international relations, but the pressure of what were, to him, more urgent issues never made this possible, and what he wrote on the subject did not reveal a very consistent philosophy of the nation and its place in the world—a consistency which, we know, is hard enough to attain. Thorough-going nationalism naturally conflicted with his views on sovereignty and on the need for economic reconstruction; he could not admit the unlimited claims of the nation-state, and declared that "nationality must, if it is to be consistent with the needs of civilization, be set in the context that matters of common interest to more than one nation-state cannot be decided by the fiat of one member of the international community"; he maintained that "we can retain all that is essential to the freedom of national life and yet fully admit the implications of the international community", while "patriotism could be sublimated into forms less dangerous to social welfare". And yet he was bound to admit that the framework of the nation-state with all its narrowness and limitations, was at present necessary to the realization of socialism in any country. Whether he would have been one day able to break away from this dilemma we shall never know. It is, however, worth remarking that the last article he wrote⁸ contains some very practical and valuable suggestions as to the possibility of approaching Russia with a view of putting an end to the "cold" war, or at least showing the genuineness of western European desires to live at peace with her.

If his chief concern was, as he tells us, the study of political ideas, he did not neglect the institutions through which they are expressed. The Grammar of Politics contains a very full survey of the institutional framework of the state as he conceived it; he had a deep understanding of the working of our constitution and of the forces active behind its archaic exterior; he made many an illuminating comment on French constitutional practice and evolution, as, for instance, that "the whole history of France in the nineteenth century could be written around the struggle for the control of schools". He could in fact have given us an authoritative treatise on the French political system. But it is as an interpreter of the American political scene that he made his chief contribution to the science of institutions.⁹ This was made in a number of articles,¹⁰ in numerous comments scattered through his work, and in his two full-length studies of the American Presidency and of American democracy.

It may perhaps be wondered why the socialist Laski was so deeply interested in so capitalist a society. He tells us why in Authority and the Modern State; while the answer was given thirty-three years ago, he would probably have made it now, although he would probably alter some of the terms used. "Granted its corrupt politics, its exuberant optimism, the withdrawal of much of its ability from governmental life and a traditional faith in the efficacy of its orthodox political mechanisms that may well prove disastrous [a true forecast, vide the great depression], yet there are two aspects in which the basis of its life provides opportunities instinct with profound and hopeful significance. It can never be forgotten that America was born in revolution. In the midst of its gravest materialism, that origin has preserved an idealist faith. It has made the thought of equality of opportunity and the belief in natural rights conceptions that, in all their vagueness, no man may dare to neglect. . . . Americans, in the last analysis, believe in democratic government with a fierce intensity that cannot be denied."

Of American Democracy a reviewer said that "compared with Professor Laski, Tocqueville knew comparatively little and Bryce's immense knowledge was more restricted in extent and less informed by an organizing idea". In one sense, Laski almost knew too much, and allowed his quasi-encyclopaedic knowledge and stupendous memory to run away with him; it is a pity he "didn't have time to make the book shorter". It is also true that to some extent it tends to be a picture of things thirty years ago. But unless one has tried to do so, one can scarcely realize the difficulty of shaking off and amending early impressions made during one's first long stay in a foreign country; his spell at Harvard inevitably stamped on his mind certain views which later short stays, however frequent, could never entirely eradicate. It may also be said that, just as his views on British affairs tended to be over-catastrophic, those on America tended to be over-optimistic. In the passage from Authority and the Modern State, quoted above, we omitted these words: "When the dissatisfaction with economic organization becomes, as it is rapidly becoming, acute enough to take political form, it is upon those elements that it will fasten." Twenty-six years later, in the Preface to American Labour, already referred to, Laski explains why this dissatisfaction has not taken political form. And it is a question whether there is as much of a "new orientation of ideals" as later on in the passage quoted he seems to expect.

But how those minor faults are compensated by the immensity of the panorama of American life presented to us ! Laski interprets his terms of reference widely enough to include not only the political scene, but religion, education, culture, minority problems, professions, press, cinema, and radio, ending with an illuminating picture of "Americanism as a principle of civilization", with "its contradictions, its unfulfilled promises, its mystique of commercial success, its unwillingness to confront the problem of evil, the need for a deeper realization and a wider application of the principles on which American independence was built". And behind it all looms the fascination America held for him, in spite of all he found to criticize, the fascination of her immense possibilities, of her great gifts and resources, of her cultural and intellectual potentialities, still largely undeveloped by an educational system needing, as he sees it, "a fundamental change of spirit". He had heard America a-calling, and though his primary loyalties and immediate responsibilities lay on the English side of the Atlantic, the call could never be ignored for long.

But Laski's greatest work was perhaps not to be found in his writings or in his public speaking so much as in his influence on his students. No one can tell how many vocations of political scientists are due to him, and there are certainly few major centres of study of the subject in which some pupil of his is not carrying on his example of fearless enquiry, and applying the method he advocated of "testing his own faith against the only solid criterion that we know, the experience of mankind". In carrying on the work of his great teacher, the student will not, in the latter's own words, attempt the "impossible task of avoiding bias", but will "consciously assert its presence and warn his hearers against it—being above all things open-minded about the difficulties involved and honest in his attempt to meet them, for the greatest thing he can after all teach, is the lesson of conscious sincerity, along which road more truth is discovered than can be found on any other". And with that inspiration and guidance before him, he will find, as Laski tells us he found, that "the service of thought is the noblest calling to which a man can devote himself.

NOTES

¹ Laski's political philosophy will certainly prove a fruitful field for graduate theses. We may note here that one already exists, written in 1941 for the M.A. degree of the American University of Beirut by a Palestinian Arab, Mr. Nizam Sharabi. The thesis was not published, but a typescript copy is to be found in the L.S.E. Library. It should be added that the choice of subject was entirely the student's own, and was not suggested by his supervisor.

² Article in the New Masses, New York, 1st August 1939. In the same article he denies that the intellectual can be "above the battle"; "whether he will or no, he is in it", and he goes on to pour scorn on the "vaunted objectivity" of the social sciences: "It is only a way of concealing the basic assumptions upon which their makers build."

³ "Up to 1920 my socialism was above all the outcome of a sense of the injustice of things as they were" ("Why I am a Marxist", in the New York Nation, 1938).

⁴ "The idealist theory is at bottom a theory of obedience, and takes its stand on the beatification of order." It is therefore incompatible with any true theory and practice of liberty. "A true theory of liberty is built upon a denial of each of the assumptions of idealism.... In the whole history of political philosophy there is nothing more subtle than the skill with which the idealist school has turned the flank of the classic antithesis between liberty and authority."

Laski never denied his debt to Hobhouse, but we cannot follow Mr. Kingsley Martin when he states, in his review of The State in Theory and Practice, that "L. T. Hobhouse, who was a better logician than Mr. Laski, had already made so complete a wreck of the idealist theory as expounded by Bosanquet that he left comparatively little for anyone else to do". It seems to us that Laski carried the attack further than Hobhouse had done in showing the practical implications and contradictions of the theory, and working out its connection with certain economico-social systems.

⁵ In the New Statesman for 8th April.

⁶ An excellent summary of the Marxist analysis is also to be found in his Introduction to the 1937 edition of A Grammar of Politics.

⁷ "The conflict between the Marxism of his mind and the liberalism of his heart clearly appeared during his first visit to Moscow in 1934. After an ardent defence of the social changes brought about by the Bolshevists, he made before the Moscow Academy an equally impassioned plea in favour of democratic and parliamentary liberty" (Jean Weiss, obituary notice in the Paris Monde).

⁸ Posthumously published in World Horizon for May.

⁹ And also as an interpreter of the British system of government to America. His frequent visits to the States, his numerous spells of teaching in that country, had made him well known and appreciated in a large number of American universities by many who did not share his political views.

¹⁰ We would especially refer to his Introduction to Ernest Davies's American Labour. It is an illuminating explanation of the state of American labour politics, with a singularly penetrating appreciation of the weaknesses and also of the strength of American trade unionism.