Harold Laski

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Harold J. Laski (1893-1950) was an English political scientist and Labour party leader. Active as a teacher and political theorist, he was also one of the leading writers on democratic socialism.

Harold Laski was born on June 30, 1893, in Manchester, the son of a Jewish cotton shipper. Though his father occupied a position of leadership in the Jewish community, young Laski declared his independence of family and community alike at the age of 18 by marrying a Gentile. In the same year, 1911, he began his undergraduate education at Oxford.

At Oxford, Laski began his studies in science and then switched to history, studying under some of the leading Oxford historians of his day, including Sir Ernest Barker and H. A. L. Fisher. He formed close relationships with a number of important leaders of the Labour party, and wrote articles for the Daily Herald after receiving his degree in 1914.

From 1916 to 1920 Laski taught history at Harvard University, receiving his position partly through the influence of his friend Felix Frankfurter, who was then at Harvard Law School and later was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Laski also formed a lasting friendship with "the Great Dissenter," Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, of the Supreme Court. During this period Laski produced a number of major works on the nature, powers, and limitations of the modern sovereign state. His chief concern was that the workers should be able to maintain their freedom in the face of the growing demands of the modern state.

In 1920 Laski accepted a position at the London School of Economics and taught political science there until his death 30 years later. He became one of the most influential teachers at the London School and attracted a large number of students from around the world. He also managed to fit considerable political activity on behalf of the Labour party into a crowded schedule of teaching and writing. He campaigned for Labour candidates, was one of the directors of the influential Left Book Club, and was active in the antifascist popular front movement during the Spanish Civil War. The height of his political career was from 1937 to 1949, when he served as a member of the National Executive of the Labour party.

Through the years Laski grew pessimistic about the possibility of achieving socialism through constitutional and democratic means but continued to urge such a course in Britain and the United States. In his writings he argued that Britain and the United States still offered hope that socialism might be attained and democratic traditions in the two countries strengthened and preserved. These ideas were primarily set forth in two of his later major works: Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (1943) and The American Democracy (1948).

Laski died in London on March 24, 1950. Characteristically, although he had been ill, he had continued teaching, writing, and even political campaigning until shortly before his death.

Further Reading

An authoritative and sympathetic biography of Laski is Kingsley Martin, Harold Laski, 1893-1950: A Biographical Memoir (1953). A definitive, scholarly treatment of Laski's contribution as a political scientist is in Herbert A. Deane, The Political Ideas of Harold J. Laski (1955).

Additional Sources

Eastwood, G. G., Harold Laski, London: Mowbrays, 1977.

Kramnick, Isaac, Harold Laski: a life on the left, New York: Allen Lane, Penguin Press, 1993.

(1893-1950) British political scientist. One of the most influential Marxist writers on British and American political institutions. In A Grammar of Politics (1925) Laski combined a radical critique of the economic structure of society with a pluralistic programme of political reform. He argued that inequalities of wealth and political access prevented the free development of the majority of society; and proposed a programme of state intervention in the economic sector combined with corporatist decentralization in order to widen access to political power. Democracy in Crisis (1933) responded to the economic depression by arguing that large-scale unemployment was an inherent feature of capitalism but incompatible with democracy; the solution was democratic socialism. Laski reacted positively to Roosevelt's New Deal, but was also impressed by the economic reforms introduced in Soviet Russia under Stalin. His Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (1943) sought to reconcile economic planning with personal self-expression, but Laski's work suffered from an imbalance between persuasive institutional analysis of political power and a rather idealistic approach to economic development and class relations. His advocacy of a pro-Soviet foreign policy saw him labelled as an extremist, particularly in the United States. However, his strident advocacy of socialism and opposition to imperialism gave him a following amongst the anti-colonial nationalist movements, particularly in India.

Laski was a prominent member of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party. When Laski pointed out 1945 that the parliamentary Labour Party was, according to the Party constitution, subordinate to the extraparliamentary Party of which he was chairman, Winston Churchill claimed that to vote Labour was thus to hand over power to an unelected body. Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, nevertheless won the 1945 General Election, having written to Laski, ‘a period of silence from you would be welcome’.

— Alistair McMillan

Harold Laski
Born	June 30, 1893(1893-06-30) Manchester, UK
Died	March 24, 1950 (aged 56) London
Nationality	United Kingdom
Fields	Economics
Institutions	London School of Economics
Alma mater	New College, Oxford
Notable students	V. K. Krishna Menon, Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., K. R. Narayanan, Pierre Trudeau

Harold Joseph Laski (June 30, 1893 – March 24, 1950) was an English political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, and served as the 1945-1946 chairman of the Labour Party.

After attending Manchester Grammar School and New College, Oxford, Laski became (1922-1936) a member of the executive committee of the socialist Fabian Society, and in 1936 he joined the Executive Committee of the Labour Party. Cowling describes him as a "prolific publicist and journalist."

In 1926 he was appointed professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. One of his more famous books is Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (which was dedicated to Edward R. Murrow). He was active on the American university lecture circuit. His 19 year friendship with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, begun when he was 23 and Holmes was 75, is reflected in two volumes of correspondence, published in 1953.

He was a prominent proponent of Marxism and had a massive impact on the politics and the formation of India, having taught a generation of future Indian leaders at the LSE. It is almost entirely due to him that the LSE has a semi-mythological status in India. He was steady in his unremitting advocacy of the independence of India. He was a revered figure to Indian students at the LSE. One Indian Prime Minister said "in every meeting of the Indian Cabinet there is a chair reserved for the ghost of Professor Harold Laski". .^[1]

George Orwell used a section from his book, Essay in Freedom of Expression, as an example of "especially bad" writing.

His elder brother was Neville Laski. A cousin was the author and publisher Anthony Blond.

Contents 1 Selected Laski bibliography 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

Selected Laski bibliography

• Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty, 1917
• Authority in the Modern State, 1919, ISBN 1-58477-275-1
• Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham, 1920
• Karl Marx, 1921
• A Grammar of Politics, 1925
• Communism, 1927
• Liberty in the Modern State, 1930
• "The Dangers of Obedience and Other Essays" 1930
• Democracy in Crisis, 1933
• The State in Theory and Practice, 1935, The Viking Press
• The Rise of Liberalism, 1936
• The American Presidency, 1940
• Reflections On the Revolution of our Time , 1943
• Faith, Reason, and Civilisation, 1944
• The American Democracy, 1948, The Viking Press
• The Rise of European Liberalism

See also

• American Studies in Britain

References

1. ^ Harold Laski: A Life on the Left. By Isaac Kramnick and Barry Sheerman., The Penguin Press, 1993

• Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler - British Politics & Policy 1933-1940, Cambridge University Press, 1975, p. 410, ISBN 0-521-20582-4

External links

• Works by Harold Laski at Project Gutenberg
• Biography and various quotations regarding Laski
• Brief biographical sketch from the London School of Economics

Political offices
Preceded by Ellen Wilkinson	Chair of the Labour Party 1944–1945	Succeeded by Philip Noel-Baker

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