Harold Laski: Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society (Palgrave MacMillan History of International Thought)

Harold Laski Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society

Peter Lamb

Harold Laski

The Palgrave Macmillan History of International Thought Series seeks to publish the best work in this growing and increasingly important field of academic inquiry. Its scholarly monographs cover three types of work: (i) exploration of the intellectual impact of individual thinkers, from key disciplinary figures to neglected ones; (ii) examination of the origin, evolution, and contemporary relevance of specific schools or traditions of international thought; and (iii) analysis of the evolution of particular ideas and concepts in the field. Both classical (pre 1919) and modern (post 1919) thought are covered. Its books are written to be accessible to audiences in International Relations, International History, Political Theory, and Sociology. Series Editor Peter Wilson, London School of Economics and Political Science Advisory Board Jack Donnelly, University of Denver Fred Halliday, London School of Economics and Political Science David Long, Carleton University Hidemi Suganami, University of Keele Also in the Series Internationalism and Nationalism in European Political Thought by Carsten Holbraad The International Theory of Leonard Woolf: A Study in Twentieth-Century Idealism by Peter Wilson Tocqueville, Lieber, and Bagehot: Liberalism Confronts the World by David Clinton Harold Laski: Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society by Peter Lamb

Harold Laski: Problems of Democracy, the Sovereign State, and International Society Peter Lamb

HAROLD LASKI

© Peter Lamb, 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 1–4039–6580–3 hardback Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lamb, Peter, 1960– Harold Laski : problems of democracy, the sovereign state, and international society / Peter Lamb. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–6580–3 1. Laski, Harold Joseph, 1893–1950. 2. Democracy. 3. Sovereignty. 4. International relations. I. Title. JC257.L4L375 2004 321.8—dc22

2003068924

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition : June 2004 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

For Val

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Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

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Chapter 1 Introduction

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Chapter 2 The Evolution of Laski’s Political Thought

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Chapter 3 The Limits of Capitalist Democracy

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Chapter 4 Liberty: A Victim of Capitalist Democracy

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Chapter 5 State Sovereignty and Class Power

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Chapter 6 Problems of International Politics: The Inter-War Era

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Chapter 7 Problems of International Politics: War and the Post-War Order

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Chapter 8 Conclusion: Laski’s Enduring Significance

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Bibliography

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Index

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Preface and Acknowledgments

I

n this book I seek to illustrate the importance of Harold Laski’s political and international thought. By presenting Laski’s works as a developing research program, characterized by both continuities and discontinuities, the book draws attention to the important contribution of their author to the study of capitalist democracy and the modern state. Many of the ideas in this book were first developed in my Ph.D. thesis on Laski, written at the University of Manchester and supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. Special thanks go out to Geraint Parry, who supervised the thesis. Others who have given valuable advice, or raised important points in conversation, include David Howell, Kevin Morgan, David Morrice, Jules Townshend, and Peter Wilson. I am also grateful for the assistance of the librarians and archivists at the following locations: The British Library of Political and Economic Science in London; the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull; the Internationaal Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis in Amsterdam; the Special Collections Division and Main Division of the John Rylands University Library at the University of Manchester; the National Museum of Labour History in Manchester, and the Working Class Movement Library in Salford. Valerie Lamb and Josephine Jones generously refused to accept remuneration for translating the articles by Armand Hoog and Karl Schultes respectively. Frederica Strurani translated Claudio Palazzolo’s book. I acknowledge that the book adapts and develops arguments that were presented in some of my published articles: “Laski on Sovereignty: Removing the Mask from Class Dominance,” History of Political Thought 18 (1997); “Laski on Rights and the Problem of Liberal Democratic Theory,” Politics 19 (1999), “Laski’s Ideological Metamorphosis,” Journal of Political Ideologies 4

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(1999); and “Harold Laski (1893–1950): Political Theorist of a World in Crisis,” Review of International Studies 25 (1999). I thank the publishers and editors of these journals. Finally, and importantly, thanks go to Valerie Lamb, for her invaluable support and patience.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

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arold Laski achieved both prestige and notoriety for his critique of the modern state. When he died in 1950 he was widely recognized as one of the prominent thinkers of the British Left. Reflecting on Laski’s achievements, John Strachey (1950) acknowledged that his fellow socialist intellectual had articulated the problems and anxieties of his generation. Strachey’s eulogy is not, perhaps, to be unexpected; but the respectful obituaries did not come exclusively from the Left. Indeed, perhaps the most concise and influential epitaph came from the pen of the free-market liberal Max Beloff. Although he disapproved of what he saw as Laski’s early movement away from individualism, Beloff acknowledged nevertheless that the previous 30 years might be described as the “Age of Laski” (1950, 378). Today many share Beloff ’s view of Laski as a thinker who produced his most profound work as a young academic in North America from 1915 to 1920—the period in which he emerged as a central figure in the pluralist assault on theories of the central, sovereign state. Furthermore, Laski’s application of the pluralist critique to the external roles of states in the 1920s has, in the early twenty-first century, attracted renewed interest (see Schmidt 2002a, 22–3). The significance of his later political and international thought is, however, less widely recognized. Readers of the early Laski who neglect the evolution of his thought overlook the development of a trenchant critique of both capitalist democracy and the global capitalist order. What makes this development particularly interesting is the way in which he became increasingly critical of the associationalist ideas that had established his position on the intellectual and political scene. His work can be seen as a lengthy exercise of continual reflection upon the problems of democracy and

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sovereignty, undertaken as he sought a fuller understanding of the state in an ever more interdependent world. By the 1930s he had come to see state sovereignty, which he had always considered a fiction, as a means by which class dominance was legitimated. His position should thus not only be retrieved from the idealist tradition into which thinkers of his time have traditionally been (often inappropriately) bundled, but also distinguished from some of his notable contemporaries on the Left. I argue in what follows that the intellectual development that led him to his distinctive position is of continuing analytical value to scholars of political theory and international relations. This book thus contributes to the restoration of Laski’s reputation as a significant internationalist thinker of the democratic socialist tradition. As such a thinker Laski produced work that transgresses the artificial division that came to be drawn in the 1950s between political theory and international relations theory. With the significant exception of the English school thinkers of international society, international relations theory came to be largely deprived of a normative element. Furthermore, even the normative debates of the English school were largely confined to politics between states, with little exploration of overlapping concerns that might bring the division into question. In the case of political theory—particularly democratic theory—important developments were largely inhibited by the focus upon politics within nominally sovereign states. The artificial division remained firmly in place for many decades, but has in recent years been challenged by a range of scholars concerned to question the restrictions that were placed on each side of the imaginary fence (see Brown 2000; Schmidt 2002b). In an important study published during the final decade of the twentieth century Chris Brown challenges (1992, 7) the artificial division that, as he suggests, is not at all borne out by the history of political thought. Such thought has not always been restricted to the politics of the sovereign state. International relations is, Brown argued (1992, 4 and 6), an integral part, rather than a twin, of political theory. Now in this context Laski’s work is of immense value. From the early to mid-twentieth century Laski sustained a powerful challenge to the notion of sovereignty—a challenge that characterized his socialist case for the development of democracy on a global scale. He thus addressed some of the very concerns that are now seen to justify the demolition of the fence. Moreover, his analysis of sovereignty and democracy will be of value to those who wish to continue with the process of that demolition. Given the enduring value of Laski’s work, one might reasonably enquire why the need for retrieval should arise at all. That the reappraisal offered here

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is necessary is a consequence of the quite rapid deterioration that his reputation suffered in the years surrounding his death. In a telling sign toward the end of his life, his thought was targeted by the young scholar F.S. Northedge who would later, as a distinguished professor of International Relations, defend the tendency of the international system of sovereign states to curb what he considered to be the propensity of humans to conflict. War between states was, Northedge would stress (1976, 26–32), the exception rather than the rule—people who sought security from the consequences of their natural propensity had a stake in the order provided by the system. In his early attack on Laski he took issue with the latter thinker’s view that socialism and world governance would overcome the failure of competing capitalist states to achieve the technically possible abundance of necessary goods. What Laski failed to see, he argued from the realist perspective that had by then become prominent, was that the common man is warlike and violent in attitude and action. The education that in Laski’s view would change such attitudes, would, he went on, actually enable men “to fight each other with conviction where they had previously fought with blind fury” (1948, 30). As I hope to illustrate in chapters 6 and 7, Laski’s conviction that it was the sovereign state and its vested interests, rather than human nature, that led to warlike attitudes and actions is stronger than Northedge appreciated. Northedge’s attack was one of many in the early postwar era. In the 1950s even Laski’s more sympathetic commentators tended to concede that his most original and creative work had been published by the mid-1920s, in his early attacks on the centralized state and sovereignty theory (Hawkins 1950; Soltau 1950; Schultes 1955). Others were still more critical, especially in the hostile environment of early Cold War American society, where Laski was portrayed as a threat to national security. Carroll Hawkins argued in this climate that, having always “failed the liberal democrat” (1950, 376) by threatening the existence of constitutional government, Laski’s attempt to marry his early liberal themes to Marxism rendered the former “fundamentally secondary to the force of an intolerant absolute doctrine” (1950, 384). As similar interpretations began to circulate, Laski’s work came to be discredited, and the American offensive culminated in an award winning study by Herbert Deane. Through its caustic attack and influential conclusion that “Laski’s political teachings were not of major philosophic significance or profundity” (1955, 344), Deane’s book did much to undermine Laski’s reputation. What will hopefully become apparent to the reader of this book is that, far from being the acceptance of an “intolerant absolute doctrine,” Laski’s adoption of Marxism allowed him to extend and deepen his earlier pluralist

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analysis of the obstacles to democracy and freedom. Since the early days of liberalism the state had, he never tired of stressing, defended with legitimacy particular interests both within society and on the international stage. But the necessity for his ideas on this problem to be spelt out might seem strange. Why, after all, did the ideas of such a prominent figure fail to provoke a sufficiently strong response to his critics? One reason was the sharp change of intellectual fashion that swept through post-War Anglo-American circles. As early as 1945 Laski’s work came under attack for its combination of normative, descriptive, and ideological tenets (Zerby 1945). Such a combination was unacceptable to the ascendant logical positivist movement, which came to dominate political philosophy in the 1950s. During that decade Peter Laslett (1956) acknowledged, in a seminal essay, that Laski had been one of the last standard bearers of the normative tradition, which seemed to many to have died at the hands of the positivists. But this was not all. The growing strength of revisionist social democracy marginalized the power of the intellectual Left to influence the Labour Party and labor movement in his native Britain. In this climate Laski’s thought was described by the Labour Party intellectual Tony Crosland as being like “an echo from another world” (1956, 66). As a consequence of this multi-sided onslaught Laski soon came to be considered as just one of many unremarkable thinkers from what seemed like the distant past. In the case of the internationalist aspect of his thought, the neglect of his work reflected the shape of the international relations discipline more generally. The climate was cold in the 1950s and 1960s for normative political and international theory (see Brown 1992, 8–9 and 98). It is, however, significant that the obscurity to which he was consigned turned out to be neither absolute nor permanent. Since the late 1980s his life and works have enjoyed something of a revival, leading to the republication in 1997 of many of his major writings (Hirst ed. 1997). Two impressive biographies were published in his centenary year of 1993 (Kramnick and Sheerman 1993; Newman 1993), and the renewed interest in his early pluralist political philosophy has been particularly strong (Vincent 1987; Feuer 1989; Hirst 1989; 1993; 1994; Nicholls 1994; Runciman 1997; Pemberton 1998; Laborde 2000a). Some contributors to the revival have acknowledged that Laski’s later work was characterized by important aspects and qualities (Miliband 1993; Newman 1996; 1998). However, his writings in the 1930s and 1940s, which focus on the restrictions placed on democracy and freedom under the guise of state sovereignty, are still unduly neglected. Hence, the contribution he developed over many years to the understanding of modern politics is still

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undermined by its mauling at the hands of Deane. Laski’s work needs to be rescued from this unjustified treatment. Hence, by focusing on his ideas regarding democracy, freedom, and sovereignty, and his application of those ideas to the analysis of international affairs, the present book seeks to draw attention to the lasting value of his work. In its contribution to the revival of Laski, this reappraisal of his political and international thought attends in particular to the balance in his writings between continuity and discontinuity. By taking this approach we can see that the evolution of Laski’s thought serves as a clear example of the complexity and ambiguity that characterizes many political concepts such as sovereignty, democracy, and freedom. Laski often tied himself into intellectual knots in his attempts to come to terms with such concepts. Criticism of his lack of clarity is, indeed, not ungrounded. Nevertheless, his willingness to address the problems of complexity and ambiguity, and to revise his thought accordingly, makes him a particularly interesting thinker. Upon reading Laski’s extensive writings one can detect a process of ideological evolution shaped by his experiences of an era in which many representatives of states seemed prepared to substitute force for legitimacy, both at home and in foreign policy. This process can, perhaps, be understood most clearly by reflecting upon his life and intellectual development. Hence, the next section provides a very brief sketch of Laski’s significance as a political and international thinker. Harold Joseph Laski Laski was born in Manchester, England in 1893 to wealthy, actively Liberal Jewish parents. Nevertheless, having read voraciously as he fought against ill health as a child, he came in his youth to adopt socialism and atheism. Inspired moreover by the gentile Frida Kerry, whom he married in 1911, he became a staunch advocate of women’s suffrage. Hence, when he took up a place at Oxford that year, he did so in disgrace in the eyes of his family. After graduating with a First in 1914 Laski was deemed unfit for military service at the outbreak of War. Subsequently, he began his academic career in North America, where he held posts at McGill University in Montreal and then Harvard. Deeply impressed by the then fashionable American pragmatist theories of William James and John Dewey (see Pemberton 1998; Hoog 1937, 141–6), his work of the period was bitterly opposed to monist theories of state supremacy. This was, in fact, a position he had developed over several years. As an undergraduate he had been influenced by G.D.H. Cole’s guild socialism, and also by the liberal pluralist ideas of J.N. Figgis and

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F.W. Maitland. When as a young academic he began to publish his ideas, his critique of the role of the state became central to his early political philosophy. In his early writings (1915; 1916; 1917; 1919; 1921a) he voiced his opposition to the concept of sovereignty and advocated, moreover, the devolution of political power to geographical and functional organizations. Subsequently he came to be ranked alongside Cole, Figgis, and Maitland as a major contributor to the English pluralist tradition of the early twentieth century (Hirst 1989; Nicholls 1994; Runciman 1997; Laborde 2000a). By the time of his return to Britain in 1920 to take up a lectureship at the London School of Economics (LSE), Laski had begun work on what would become his most famous volume: A Grammar of Politics (1925a). The book was published at a time when he believed that, with the exception of the work of A.D. Lindsay, L.T. Hobhouse, and R.H. Tawney, creativity was largely absent from British political theory. The great figures of Hegelian idealism were now dead, and he was particularly concerned that “the left wing has not produced a coherent philosophy of their own” (1925b, 99). Tawney’s Acquisitive Society had, in his view, dealt with only one of the aspects of the problem of the modern state and society. Laski did not elaborate on this comment; but what is crucial to his socialist thought is a far greater emphasis than had been voiced by Tawney (1961 [1921]) on the need for socialists to defend individual freedom. Nevertheless, as we shall see in chapter 3, in his later work Laski would acknowledge the influence upon his own work of Tawney’s notion of acquisitiveness. In the opening pages of A Grammar Laski proclaimed that there was a deficiency more generally in political theory. Even the works of great theorists such as Bentham, Hegel, Rousseau, and Marx were, he considered, too simplistic to account for the problems and possibilities of democratic and international politics in the twentieth century. “A NEW political philosophy,” his first sentence proclaimed boldly, “is necessary to a new world” (1925a, 15). A Grammar was an important milestone in the development of Laski’s thought. In continuity from his early political philosophy he stressed that, as groups enjoyed considerable influence upon its decisions, the state did not enjoy real sovereignty. But while he continued to set out the case for the devolution of wide-ranging powers to regions and functional groups, he also called for a greater decision-making role for the state on issues that affected society directly as a whole. At this central level his pluralism now took the form of an attempt to establish the political and economic institutional channels through which groups could effectively influence decisions. His view of society as a plurality of interests, each of which deserved to be advanced equally, survived. What had changed was his view of the way in which those

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interests could be advanced in practice. He devised what might be termed a form of socialist corporatism, in which governments and groups would be enabled to bargain within an egalitarian consensus. For this to work, however, the problem of sovereignty would need to be addressed. In A Grammar Laski exposed sovereignty as a screen behind which the property-owning class used state power. Such power was wielded at the expense of the rights that would enable ordinary people to attain freedom and self-fulfillment. He also denied that democracy could be freed from its capitalist restrictions unless the hitherto sacrosanct boundaries of nation-states were transcended. For him, widespread and valuable freedom could only be attained in the increasingly interdependent world under the guidance of international democratic institutions. He believed that this required the abolition of the nominally sovereign power, which served competing capitalist interests. A Grammar confirmed Laski’s position as a major political theorist. This was reflected in glowing references (LC Amsterdam, 28.2, 28.3, 28.4, and 28.5) from a range of eminent figures including Ernest Barker, H.A.L. Fisher, Viscount Haldane, and A.D. Lindsay, which helped him secure the Chair of Government at the LSE in 1926—a position he held for the remainder of his life. The development and modification of his pluralist ideas in A Grammar helped make the book one of the classic texts of the British democratic socialist tradition. Nevertheless, soon after its publication, he began to doubt whether the works on which his reputation had been built had taken fully into account the refusal of classes to abdicate voluntarily from power. Hence, he began in the late 1920s to develop a perspective from which he would build a broadly Marxist critique of the state upon the foundations of his pluralist philosophy. His experience of the global political and economic crises of the inter-War years led him to develop his early themes of societal division, sectional political influence, and the suppression of rights into a class analysis of society and state power. As he put it at the end of the 1930s: The experience of Russia, the advent of Fascism in central and southeastern Europe, the attitude of the owning class in Spain and France and the United States to all serious attempts at social reform, the general strike of 1926 and the betrayal of 1931 in England, the new imperialisms of Japan and Italy, have all convinced me that, in large outline, there is no answer to the philosophy of Marx. (1940a, 168) Throughout this book I argue that this willingness to reflect and revise led him to make some of his most acute observations in his sadly neglected writings of the 1930s and 1940s.

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One should not, however, assume that Laski lost faith entirely in the pluralist project. Indeed, the balance between continuity and change in his thought is crucial to an understanding of his work (see Lamb 1999a). By focusing on the links between the phases of his intellectual development, the following chapters seek to draw out that balance far more accurately than has been the case in previous studies. To achieve such accuracy it is necessary to understand the way in which Laski’s political philosophy evolved in a continual process of reflection, throughout which his early ideas were reconsidered critically. Perhaps most importantly, Deane’s highly influential critique (1955), which divided Laski’s work into several sharply defined and apparently inconsistent phases, will thus need to be countered in the present study. Deane was not the first writer to interpret Laski’s work in terms of a series of phases. George Catlin had argued (1950 [1939], 649–99) in the late 1930s that Laski’s intellectual development went through the incoherent phases of pluralism, libertarian socialism, and Marxism. Using a more extensive set of phases, Deane set out to identify the time frame of each. For him, Laski’s phases were those of pluralism, from 1914 to 1924; Fabianism, from 1925 to 1931; Marxism, from 1932 to 1939; the War years of 1940 to 1945; and a post-War period from 1946 to 1950. Deane’s approach was certainly influential. As recently as 1989 Arun Bhattacharjee (1989, 239–43) published an account that summarized Laski’s work according to the five phases. Contrary to Deane’s interpretation, significant elements of continuity characterize Laski’s attempt to find answers to the problems of the modern state and society. Nevertheless, other commentators such as Bernard Zylstra (1968) and W.H. Greenleaf (1981) have underestimated the extent to which Laski’s ideas did in fact change. By striking the balance between continuity and change, the elasticity and flexibility of the ideologies adopted and adapted by Laski will be brought to light. Some would argue that the continuity in his thought meant that Laski’s Marxism was never more than superficial. By clinging to the anti-holistic tenet of his early work, it might be said, he only ever stood on the perimeter of that ideology. Holism, it has been suggested (Femia 1993), is a key element of Marxism that leads to suppression of dissent, thus making Marxism ultimately incompatible with democracy. Seen from this perspective Laski, it would seem, could retain and develop some of his pluralist ideas only because he never wholeheartedly embraced Marxism. Laski might, then, have been deceiving himself upon assuming that he had entered fully into the Marxist fold. Nevertheless, as Jon Elster has suggested (1986, 4), being a Marxist can either mean holding every one of the beliefs that Marx considered to be his most important, or holding that one’s own most important beliefs stem from

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the work of Marx. Laski was a Marxist in the latter sense. What is clear is that he drew upon some of the significant, if basic resources of Marxism as he developed his distinctive critique of the sovereign state, the capitalist form of democracy and the international order. Marx had combined holist explanation with normative individualism: individuals suffered exploitation under capitalism and the goal was the self-realization of individuals in the classless society (Elster 1986, 24–5). Laski’s position serves to illustrate the way in which Marxist ideas of emancipation in some ways overlap not only those of democratic socialism, but also of some variants of liberalism (see Freeden 1996, 456–60). It is the composite ideological perspective, rather than the Marxist label he chose to adopt, that contributes to the value of his work. The remnants of his early pluralism helped shape that perspective. Continuity and change are each in evidence in the internationalist approach that Laski considered crucial to socialism. In 1925 he expressed the belief that, notwithstanding the immensity of the task of transcending state sovereignty, an egalitarian, democratic, and peaceful world order might be achieved gradually through the collaboration of states within the League of Nations. But the weakness of the League, which became evident in the years that followed, led him to shift away from this optimistic approach (see Lamb 1999b). In the 1930s he began (1933a; 1935a, ch. 3) to argue that the entire international capitalist system would have to be abolished if states were to relinquish their claims to sovereignty. This was a position that he maintained for the rest of his life (1943a, ch. 6; 1947a). Indeed, as a member of the committee of experts consulted before the drafting in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he advised (1948a, 91) that, for such rights to be properly satisfied, it would be necessary for the relations of production to be fundamentally revised and the era of the sovereign state to be drawn to a close. Laski’s views on politics within states were, similarly, reshaped by his experience of the problems of the development of democracy within a capitalist system. In 1930, in his book Liberty in the Modern State (1930a), he continued to insist that a fuller democracy required the egalitarian conditions without which freedom in society would be inequitably restricted. Only thus would democracy become the means to widespread freedom; but he now began to reinterpret the significance of class dominance with regard to widespread and valuable freedom. The problems that capitalism presented for the development of the necessary egalitarian conditions were, he now believed, far more firmly entrenched than he had perceived earlier. In Democracy in Crisis (1933b) three years later Laski argued that because capitalism could not, by its very nature, accommodate such conditions,

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democracy could not be satisfactorily developed within the confines of capitalism. He judged that either capitalism or democracy would have to give way, as it was becoming increasingly evident that there was a contradiction between them. By the middle of the 1930s he had developed the pluralist–Marxist position from which he saw the class system as the major obstacle in the path of individuals’ self-development in their various associations. To protect capitalist interests, he argued in The State in Theory and Practice (1935a), the state, under the guise of national sovereignty, would suppress the socioeconomic rights that were necessary for the expansion of democracy and freedom. Laski subsequently won the praise of Strachey (1936, 160) who, as a leading exponent of Marxism in Britain, described The State in Theory and Practice as a rare exception to the tendency of political theory in British and American universities to ignore the existence of classes. It is perhaps a measure of the direction of Laski’s thought that he had (1936a) commissioned Strachey to provide a general, Marxist-based book on socialism for the Left Book Club in which both writers were involved. Whilst in the 1930s Laski retained from his pluralist phase the critique of state sovereignty, he now recognized more clearly the relation between capitalism and the sovereign state. The pluralist attitude to the state and law was, he conceded in an introductory chapter to the 1938 edition of A Grammar, “a stage on the road to an acceptance of the Marxist attitude to them” (1938a, xii). The denunciation of the notion of sovereignty became a key theme of his critique of modern capitalist democracy. Having always insisted that sovereignty helped disguise the state’s role as the protector of vested interests, at the expense of the aspirations of other groups in society, he now provided a cogent theory of sovereignty as a form of class power (Lamb 1997). As he saw it in the 1930s and 1940s, the abolition of both the internal and external aspects of sovereignty rested on the prior, or at least simultaneous, abolition of capitalism. What Laski had come to believe by the 1930s was that the capitalist system disallowed the actualization of the pluralistic nature of society. He stressed in a lecture in Seattle at the end of the decade that his growing conviction that groups would continue to struggle with the state in the existing society had persuaded him that, “broadly speaking, the Marxist theory of the state was unanswerable.” A pluralist theory would only be valid, he now conceded, “when a society had attained approximate equality within itself ” (1939a, 70). By exploring the weaknesses of his own early ideas he had, by then, outlined (1938a, x–xiii) what he took to be the obstacles that lay in the path of economic and political reform. This resulted in the combination of liberal and Marxist ideas that made his critique of capitalist democracy so

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interesting. Whilst he believed (1936b) that liberalism was fundamentally an ideology that served the interests of capitalism, in his view some of the theoretical goals of liberalism could be attained in a socialist society. As Dennis Thompson once suggested in a few perceptive comments (1970, 8 and 18–19), what Laski came to reject were not the liberal and democratic values of autonomy and citizenship but, rather, capitalism and the very limited form of democracy it could accommodate. It was, as I discuss in this book, from the perspective he thus developed that Laski sought to illuminate and criticize the processes that serve to legitimate the limited scope of both democratic politics and international government in the existing economic order. The problems of maintaining and developing democracy and freedom both within and in the relations between capitalist societies were, thus, central to Laski’s political thought of the 1930s and 1940s (see esp. Laski 1933b; 1948b). He produced a cogent, if dispersed, analysis of the way in which these problems reflected the domestic and international roles of the nominally sovereign state. Capitalism was, he argued (1935a; 1943a), incompatible with the socioeconomic equality that was required for democracy to be satisfactorily developed. For him (1930a), a more substantially democratic system was necessary for the liberation of every individual who faced exploitation in the existing, capitalist dominated, society and world order. Such a system would be equally and more fully responsive to the rights of its citizens, and conducive to valuable and widespread freedom (see Lamb 1999c). The problem facing the attempt to build that system was that the artificiality of sovereignty theory had helped legitimate class power by invoking spurious notions of societal unity and international hostility. This, he argued, enabled the state to serve capitalism, whilst masking the real configuration of power, which lay behind the democracy of his times (see Lamb 1997). As he continued in the 1940s to combine tenets of democratic and Marxist theory, Laski maintained an influential position within the Left. Upon reading Laski’s book Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time of 1943, for example, the Austrian socialist internationalist Julius Braunthal conceded that the book had inspired him. The book was, Braunthal opined, “a very important contribution to the socialist thought of our time” (BP Amsterdam, Envelope 63). But Laski’s thought drew a far more critical response in the early 1940s from his former tutor at Oxford, Ernest Barker. Barker represented a body of liberal opinion staunchly opposed to the importation into England of any modern continental ideological doctrine—whether of the Left or Right (Stapleton 1999). He indeed voiced directly (1942, 175–85) the concern that Laski was attempting to combine two doctrines—democracy

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and Marxism—which were ultimately incompatible with one another. Laski, he argued (1942, 179), faced the problem of determining just where he stood in relation to Marxism and democracy. But this was to overlook the flexibility and fluidity of political ideologies. Pluralism and Marxism can be seen to overlap. Marx and Engels had themselves emphasized the significance of cooperation amongst individuals as the basis for the new society. “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms,” they had predicted, “we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” (1968 [1848], 53). Each individual’s development in association with their fellows would thus be the basis. If he disagreed with Marx and Engels regarding the means to the achievement of a socialist society, Laski saw this end in similar terms. Whilst he insisted on a parliamentary path to socialism and freedom, his intended destination was the societal condition in which an associationalist democratic system could flourish. Class emancipation is a central theme within Marxism (see Wright 1993), and by thus combining elements of pluralism and Marxism Laski made a unique contribution to the broader socialist tradition. In making this contribution Laski was not content to observe the world from an ivory tower (see Laski 1940a; 1948c). He believed that there was much to be learned from actively seeking to develop the global socialist conditions he deemed essential to the fulfillment of relationships that reflected human nature. Elected by Labour activists to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) from 1937 to 1949, his political activity culminated in the high profile he developed and nurtured from this position in the 1940s. During that decade an underlying theme in his writings was that revolution might be achieved by consent, if only the capitalist class would compromise in realization that their power would be short-lived in a rapidly changing world. The feeling of national unity in the fight against Hitler might, he argued optimistically, enhance this prospect in Britain. Pursuing this line politically as a prominent member of the Labour Left he pressed for immediate radical proposals. By the time he took the chair of the NEC in 1945 he had become a thorn in the side of the party leadership. Attempting irritatingly and unsuccessfully to guide Clement Attlee’s role as deputy to Prime Minister Churchill, Laski became a target of Conservative propaganda in the general election that year, particularly after his advice to Attlee not to attend the Potsdam talks in any role other than that of observer (Burridge 1977). Nevertheless, he continued to play an active role in the party until his death five years later. As a study of Laski’s political and international thought, this book will not, primarily, be concerned with his political role in the Labour Left.

Introduction

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Readers who wish to delve further into his personal and political activities will be well served by his biographers (Kramnick and Sheerman 1993; Newman 1993; Eastwood 1977; Martin 1969). It will, nevertheless, be necessary to pay some attention to the domestic and worldwide events that helped shape his ideas. Only thus can the points of his arguments be firmly grasped. Hence, the intellectual, political, and socioeconomic elements of his environment are discussed whenever this aids the understanding of his ideas. Reappraising Laski Chapters 2–5 provide an essential backdrop for the more closely focused study that follows of Laski’s work on international politics. The significance of those chapters will become evident as the book unfolds. The gradual development of Laski’s political thought receives particular emphasis in chapter 2, which discusses the experiences and events that helped shape his views on the problems of democracy, freedom, and state power. The motive for his tendency to continually reassess his ideas in response to their changing context can be detected at an early stage of his thought. Early in the planning of A Grammar in 1918 he revealed the book’s intended contents to Justice Holmes of the U.S. Supreme Court, with whom he had struck up an unlikely friendship. Although the contents were to change, Laski claimed in the letter that the book followed an Aristotelian method. A theoretical discussion of the purpose of the state must, he argued, be derived from a historical discussion of that purpose (Howe ed. 1953, 156). Throughout his life he would, in accordance with this method, revise his thought on the basis of the problems that seemed in practice to hinder the purpose of the social good. Demonstrating the significance of this continual process of selfevaluation the chapter reveals first the rationale behind his revision of pluralism in the early 1920s, and then his gradual shift thereafter toward Marxism. A contextual foundation will thus be provided for the discussions in the subsequent chapters of the ideas that compose his critique of capitalist democracy, the modern state, and its mythical sovereignty. Laski’s own conception of democracy comes under close scrutiny in chapter 3. His view that self-government could be developed satisfactorily only in conjunction with socioeconomic equality and rights is, I suggest, reinforced by an analysis of the concept of democracy. What is of crucial importance in this respect is that the degree to which the democratic criterion of responsive rule is met will differ amongst polities. Laski saw that the further democracy was developed in order to respond equally to the citizens of a polity, the less compatible this would be with capitalism. He argued that

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an implication of the link between democracy and equality was that there was, ultimately, a contradiction between capitalism and democracy. The chapter suggests that there is, in fact, considerable substance to his analysis. This stemmed from his refusal to accept that rights rested on anything else but the needs of people and the capability of society, in its existing condition of industrial and technological development, to provide for those needs. Ordinary people should judge which needs thus became rights. Rights were thus grounded on neither metaphysical foundations nor the whim or even reasoned judgment of those people who happened at any given time to control the state. Laski’s democratic thought might today provide the basis on which rights are recognized without recourse either to law reflecting the existing configuration of power, or to untraceable foundations that ignore the human subject of those rights. Chapter 4 discusses Laski’s belief that the egalitarian reconstruction of democracy is essential for the attainment of widespread, worthwhile liberty. A problem that seriously undermined one of the central messages of his political philosophy will, at that point, require attention. This was the inconstancy of his definitions (1925a, ch. 4; 1930a; 1943a, ch. 8) of freedom or liberty. His view of human nature involved both a concern for individual autonomy and the idea that individuals could best find fulfillment by combining to seek the social good. He thus combined with his socialist aspirations the individualism that had driven his early campaign against monism. But a problem that plagued his thought was his oscillation between the positive and negative conceptions of freedom, each of which distorted his actual ideas. As will become evident in the chapter, wherein this problem is addressed by identifying an important theme that survived his conceptual uncertainty, he held a view of liberty and human nature that cohered with his egalitarian theory of democracy. His work thus helps demonstrate the compatibility that is so often unacknowledged between socialism and freedom. As was mentioned earlier, Laski believed that the restrictions placed on democracy and freedom in capitalist societies were masked by the deeply flawed notion of sovereignty. Chapter 5 examines his theory that sovereignty is, in fact, a form of power that legitimates inequality by invoking a false sense of national unity. This is a theme that was not only central to his political thought, but also to the significance of his work today. By developing a cogent account of this function of the nominally sovereign state, I argue, his ideas can make an important contribution to contemporary political debate. He spelt out clearly that decisions and laws of the state were in reality those of the people in control. Of course, this is something that is widely acknowledged; but Laski’s great achievement was to show that the notion of

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sovereignty served the powerful interests whilst simultaneously presenting a charade that masks the partiality of state law and action. People who hold the reins of the state guard and maintain an environment in which powerful interests can prosper. Sovereignty allows those interests to undermine with an aura of legitimacy the weaker or less resourceful. Chapters 6 and 7 discuss the way in which Laski’s attack on sovereignty theory led him to develop distinctive views on international relations. His views are compared and contrasted with a wide range of his contemporaries, including Norman Angell, Leonard Woolf, R. Palme Dutt, E.H. Carr, and David Mitrany. These two chapters also examine the way in which he applied his critical analysis of democracy, rights, and freedom to international politics. In chapter 6, I examine the way in which, during the 1920s and 1930s, he applied his political thought to international affairs. The chapter focuses upon his cosmopolitanism, his functional approach, and his increasingly critical attitude toward the League of Nations during that period. Chapter 7 considers his work on world affairs during and immediately after the Second World War, focusing upon his attempts from 1939 until his death in 1950 to influence the shape of the post-War global order. In chapters 6 and 7 his critique of state sovereignty is a crucial theme. The evolution of his internationalist ideas will be seen to reflect his development as a political thinker. These internationalist themes in his work have been largely neglected since his death. This is surprising given that he offered a prescient analysis of the problems that faced democracy in the existing system of states. The claims of those states to sovereignty disregarded their increasing interdependence. A democratic world order founded on rights and the abolition of state sovereignty would, he came to argue, require the capitalist system to be uprooted. In the concluding chapter I maintain that, with the necessary reconstruction to iron out some of the problems and inconsistencies of his thought, Laski’s work is of continuing significance to the understanding of politics, the state, and the problems of international society. This, however, requires a point to be mentioned before going any further. He often wrote with haste, without always spelling out his use of terms such as freedom, rights, and democracy. As was mentioned earlier in this introduction, his arguments thus sometimes lacked clarity. Moreover, Deane was not being entirely unreasonable when he claimed: “in the years between the wars [Laski] too often substituted emotion and rhetoric for intellectual rigor and discipline” (1955, 344). Hence, to signal fully the significance of Laski’s critique of capitalist democracy, the modern state, and the international order, it is necessary at times to reconstruct his central tenets in a clearer idiom. This requires

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attention both to the major works, which contributed to the development and construction of his critique, and to many of his minor publications, which help demonstrate the links between the major writings. Furthermore, as has already been mentioned, by keeping a close eye on the key elements of continuity and change in Laski’s intellectual development, the significance that is not always apparent in his writings will become clearer. Whilst he never produced a concise critique of the modern capitalist state, the scrutiny of his dispersed writings helps shed light on the inability of capitalism to accommodate the equal rights that are essential to substantial democracy and widespread valuable freedom. As will be discussed, his work might thus serve as a challenge to arguments (see Giddens 1998) that socialism should give way to a social democracy that seeks to occupy the center ground of domestic and global politics. Such scrutiny will, moreover, help reveal the lasting value of his work on the domestic and international roles of the nominally sovereign state. As his former student Ralph Miliband conceded in the 1950s (in an essay that was only published posthumously in 1995), Laski did not provide conclusive and unambiguous answers to the problem of combining socialism, democracy, and freedom (Miliband 1995, 240–1). But as Miliband added, what is perhaps most important about Laski’s writings is the light they cast upon the nature of those problems.

CHAPTER 2

The Evolution of Laski’s Political Thought

T

o grasp the force of Laski’s critique of modern capitalist democracy and the sovereign state, the continuities and discontinuities in his ideas must be traced since his emergence during the First World War as a prominent pluralist thinker. More specifically, one needs to examine the gradual transformation of his early pluralist thought into the democratic socialist and Marxist ideological positions he adopted. By thus understanding the evolutionary nature of his intellectual development, a clearer picture can be drawn of his distinctive combination during the 1930s and 1940s of broadly Marxist ideas with the continuing commitment to democracy. As this chapter seeks to illustrate, although he continued to advocate the parliamentary road to socialism he became concerned that, however entrenched a socialist party might become in government, the state would resist fundamental change. The crucial gamble would thus be to take power, introduce radical change, and thus put the onus onto the state and its vested interests to concede or react. Success at this domestic level in Britain would lay the foundations for an attempt to persuade other states to cooperate in what would eventually become a post-sovereign global order. As Ralph Miliband suggested many years later (1993, 178), Laski’s writings explored the “relative autonomy of politics” question that was to become an issue of great debate amongst Marxist political theorists in the 1960s and 1970s. It is unfortunate that Miliband never elaborated on this comment; but its significance will become evident as the present chapter investigates the influence upon Laski’s thought of a range of events in the 1920s and 1930s.

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These events included the General Strike and 1931 Crisis in Britain, the spread of fascism in Europe, the problems of the New Deal in the United States, and the outbreak of the Second World War. As we shall see, he never abandoned hope that popular pressure might prompt the state to become the catalyst for fundamental change. He conjectured optimistically (or naïvely) that the vested interests of capitalism could perhaps be convinced by such pressure that compromise was ultimately their optimal option. The economic foundations of society and the international order could thus be transformed, paving the way for an associationalist distribution of political power. The discussion in this chapter of the development of Laski as a political thinker sets the context for the analysis of his thought on democracy, freedom, and sovereignty. Furthermore, by focusing at this stage upon his work on the problems of politics within states, the ideological underpinnings of his changing interpretations of the problems of international politics are illustrated. From Pluralist Decentralism to Democratic Socialism To understand Laski’s early view of the relation between economic and political power it is useful to turn to his essays “The Problem of Administrative Areas” and “The Pluralistic State.” Having originally been published in 1918 and 1919 respectively, both were included in his book The Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays of 1921. As will be discussed in a moment, in the preface to that book he began to distance himself from the radical decentralist position of the essays that comprised the volume. In “The Problem of Administrative Areas” (1921a, ch. 2) Laski criticized both the unitary parliamentary system in Britain and the U.S. federal system, arguing that in both types of system political power was wielded at every geographical level by the holders of economic power. This meant that, whether as the reflection of sinister motives or not, political power always defended the status quo by equating the private and common good. The solution would, he was convinced, be for decision-making authority to be taken away from the nominally sovereign state and installed where decisions could be made by those directly concerned. This would require first, a system of functional units that would convey the specific interests of industries and professions; second, the retention of geographical levels of government with the aim of safeguarding the shared needs of people in particular areas; and third, a role for central government in ensuring that the functional and geographical bodies did not act to the detriment of the wider community. Setting out all this from a very optimistic point of view, he argued that the interventions

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of the state since the late nineteenth century reflected first the failure of the capitalist system, and second the growing strength and solidarity of the trade unions and professional organizations. This meant that, so long as the educational needs of the populace were satisfied, the unions would soon negotiate with the employers at functional levels with comparable strength. A new system would evolve in which capitalist economic power would be replaced by industrial democracy, involving the control of industry by the trade unions. Laski’s optimism was displayed most clearly in “The Pluralistic State” (1921a, ch. 7), in which he focused on the falsity of the supposed unity of the state. Describing the monistic state as “an hierarchic structure in which power is, for ultimate purposes, collected at a single centre,” he insisted that this was “both administratively incomplete and ethically inadequate” (1921a, 240). Nevertheless, observing that the labor movement and the British and French civil services were each calling for the partition of power, he argued that the hierarchical state could not survive for much longer. “We are,” he claimed, in the midst of a new movement for the conquest of self-government. It finds its main impulse in the attempt to disperse the sovereign power because it is realised that where administrative organization is made responsive to the actual association of men, there is a greater chance not merely of efficiency but of freedom also. (1921a, 243) Self-government would thus provide the path to a system that reflected the pluralistic nature of society. The themes of “The Problem of Administrative Areas” and “The Pluralistic State” bear distinct affinities to the ideas expressed by guild socialists such as Cole, whose oratory had made a strong impression on the undergraduate Laski before the First World War (see Laski 1948c, 16). But, in the years that followed, Laski’s thought would develop in a way that would lead him to oppose the guild socialist system. Hence, to appreciate fully the direction of his intellectual development, it is necessary to dwell briefly on the central tenets of guild socialism. Unlike the Labour Party, which broadly supported the social legislation introduced by the Liberals since 1905, the guild socialists argued that parliamentarism would only enhance the authority of the capitalist serving state. Advocating the encroachment by workers upon the capitalist functions of industry, the guild socialists hoped that the revolutionary nature of social change could be minimized. This would allow the gradual introduction of

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a system in which industry would be collectively owned by and responsible to society, but wherein guilds comprising the workers of each industry would be self-governing (Glass 1966; Wright 1974). As can be detected in the prefaces to the several editions of his book The World of Labour (1919 [1913]), during the War Cole’s enthusiasm for guild socialism grew. It was he who worked out a complex institutional scheme, which he changed frequently as he reflected on his ideas. It was, moreover, largely due to his efforts that guild socialism briefly attracted support from many quarters of the wider socialist movement (see Wright 1979, esp. 13–104). Concerned that the guild system should involve the fullest political participation of citizens, leading to societal coherence and social well-being, he came to devise “a Joint Council or Congress of the supreme bodies representing each of the main functions in Society.” “Each functional association,” he went on, “will see to the execution of its own function, and for the co-ordination of the activities of the various associations there must be a joint body representative of them” (Cole 1923 [1920], 135–6). In his book Guild Socialism Restated of 1920 he drew up elaborate plans for this structure, arguing that the essence of the attitude of the movement lay in “the belief that Society ought to be so organised as to afford the greatest possible opportunity for individual and collective selfexpression to all its members.” This, he stressed, involved and implied “the extension of positive self-government through all [society’s] parts” (1980 [1920], 13). There were in fact two wings of guild socialism, and the one represented by Cole saw the movement as the means to enhance and widen the freedom of individuals. The other wing, which held no such regard for individual freedom, was concerned primarily to introduce workers’ participation as a means to the realization of their roles in what the wing considered to be an organic community (Stears 1998). This division was significant for an understanding of Laski’s position regarding guild socialism. As I illustrate in chapter 5, Laski vehemently opposed the idea that individuals were merely components of an organic whole. This opposition underpinned his critique of sovereignty theory. Moreover, the struggle for freedom being a major feature of Laski’s political philosophy, he shared the broad aims of Cole’s wing of guild socialism. The similarities between the early ideas of Laski and Cole are such that their writings might be described together as socialist pluralism. Cécile Laborde uses this description to summarize clearly their political and philosophical affinities (Laborde 2000a, 69–100). Nevertheless, she does not discuss a gap that widened significantly in the early to mid-1920s between Laski’s pluralism and Cole’s wing of guild socialism. As will be illustrated in

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a moment, Laski was in fact openly and directly critical of guild socialism during this period. This is acknowledged by David Runciman who locates this particular change in Laski’s thought as part of a more fundamental shift in his view of the state (Runciman 1997, 199–207). However, what Runciman does not provide is an account of Laski’s experiences and reflections and their influence upon the evolution of his ideas. These experiences, which are crucial to a full understanding of Laski’s changing theoretical and ideological position, are discussed in the remainder of this chapter. The change that began to emerge in Laski’s thought of the early 1920s centered on the relationship between sovereignty and freedom. His continuing concern with the problem of state sovereignty as an obstacle to freedom led him to argue that far greater activity should be secured for interests at the level of the state. In the struggle for freedom attempts would have to be made to direct the state, rather than to erode it. Laski’s rethink was largely stimulated by his reflections on the British political system and its workings. On his return from America to England in 1920, he began to experience at first hand the political and industrial processes at work in Britain. Among the constitutional measures he proposed over the next few years, he called for the civil service to be made more accountable through parliament to the elected representatives of citizens (1922a), and for the House of Lords to be replaced by a weaker chamber the composition of which would reflect the Commons (1925c). More crucially, he began to see a role for state control of industry, incorporating widespread participation in the decision-making processes. Of great influence were the proceedings of the Royal Commission, set up by Prime Minister Lloyd George in 1919, to discuss the ownership of the mines. In the preface to The Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays Laski conceded that, since the publication of “The Problem of Administrative Areas,” “the evidence given before the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry and the Inquiry into Dockers’ Wages have [sic] shown that the institutional reconstruction will inevitably be more thorough-going than I had there, writing in 1918, imagined” (1921a, v). The Coal Commission was founded in response to the miners’ demands in January 1919 for higher wages, fewer working hours, and nationalization. Half of the Commission’s members, including R.H. Tawney and Sidney Webb, were nominated by the Miners Federation. Tawney and Webb widened the discussion to cover the shortcomings of private enterprise. Although the miners’ nominees recommended nationalization and a strong representation for the Federation on a governing council, this was opposed by the mine-owners. But with the support of its president, Sir John Sankey,

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the Commission’s report in June put forward the miners’ case. Nevertheless, when in August the government rejected the report, the miners’ cause was defeated (Pelling 1976, 161–2). In response to the proceedings of the Commission Laski collaborated with Tawney in an introduction (Tawney and Laski 1921) to a report by Viscount Haldane. Tawney and Laski argued that private initiative and private profit were motives to production that were inadequate to the nation. In their view the case for the existing, private organization of the coal industry ignored the psychological issue of “the part played by the men in the production of coal” (1921, 7). Motivation, they argued, could only be generated by allowing the workers to play their part in a government-controlled industry. Although the nominated part of the administration would have to include some present mine-managers and outsiders, the members elected by the miners to the different governing bodies would ensure “the creative interest of the workers in their efficiency and management” (1921, 10). The proceedings of the Sankey Commission had an enormous impact upon Laski’s political thought. He began to argue that, with greater accountability to the workers, the state’s decision-making procedures could be made to reflect the essentially pluralistic nature of society. It is here that his growing dissatisfaction with guild socialism becomes significant. He continued to hold that, as economic power lay behind all sources of political power, no geographically organized political systems adequately reflected societal pluralism. But he now believed that it was unrealistic to assume that the guild socialists offered a viable alternative to the existing state. Their scheme, he argued, would “need a series of written constitutions and a far more prominent judiciary than is today at our disposal for their interpretation” (1920a, 154). This, he claimed, would involve a more unified and substantial state than the guild socialists would permit. But this was not all; he also saw a psychological problem with guild socialism. For him, notwithstanding their importance in clarifying the hitherto poorly organized guild socialist theory, Cole’s ideas placed too much faith in the ability and inclination of all citizens to involve themselves directly in politics. The critical point of the democracy of the future would require a carefully designed administrative structure. The type of psychology appropriate to this new democracy would be found, Laski stressed, “not in the literature of guild socialism but in the very careful analysis presented to the Coal Commission by Lord Haldane” (1920a, 155). To be effective, power would need to be exercised on behalf of citizens, rather than directly and perhaps hastily by them. A significant degree of political power would, thus, remain at the level of the state. But such power, which had always actually responded to the

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dominant interests, would now be more widely responsible. The implications of this would be that state sovereignty would be undermined satisfactorily by a plurality of interests, rather than unsatisfactorily by a plutocracy. This emphasis on sovereignty is crucial to an understanding of the development of Laski’s democratic thought. He would in later years concede that he had underestimated the power of sovereignty theory to continue to legitimize the state as the authoritative source of power. But in the early 1920s his view that the principle could be challenged led him to believe that the way forward for trade unionism was through direct influence upon the decision-making process of the state. This distinguished his ideas from the official policy of the Labour Party, which he had joined on his return from the United States. Whilst the Labour leadership shirked from methods other than parliamentarism, resisting any demands from the rank and file for the encouragement or support for industrial action (see Miliband 1972, ch. 3), Laski denied that enfranchisement was enough to give the working class real influence. Political power was “the servant of economic power,” he argued, and hence “the economic power in the state prevents the kind of educational system by which men can be trained to see in what direction their best interests lie” (1920b, 384). Laski stressed that parliament was “destined for a long time to come to be the organ registering the decisions which are made by the pressure upon the executive of groups outside” (1920b, 384). In his view trade unions would thus be at the root of the future of democracy. This reflected his continuing belief that the balance between capital and labor was shifting, as the trade union movement in Britain was developing expertise with which to challenge that of the businessmen. The movement had, he was convinced, “passed the state where its interest was confined to hours and wages, and becomes, more and more, concerned for the spiritual freedom of its constituents” (1920c, 791). In the belief that the workers could assist in the direction of industry, he argued (1920c, 788–93) that the economic involvement of citizens would help take democracy beyond its narrowly political terms. He stressed (1920c, 793–4), however, that the satisfactory development of this scheme depended, crucially, upon the greater equalization of wealth and the adequate education and training of the workers. This faith in the possibility of an evolutionary transition from capitalism made Laski resolutely opposed to Marxist, and especially Leninist, revolutionary doctrine. He believed (1923) that the corollary of revolution would be dictatorship, which he condemned in both its communist and fascist forms. The only revolution that could hope for permanence would, he insisted, be built on the gradual development of organized conviction

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amongst the working class: “To endanger that process by exalting violence will not merely destroy a law here and a government there. It will, in the end, disrupt the foundations of the social fabric” (1923, 54). He recognized (1922b) the significance of Marx’s law of the concentration of capital; industrial development had led modern business to be characterized by large-scale enterprise, and by the concentration of capital into continually fewer hands. This nevertheless, Laski insisted, invoked a collectivist spirit, which led “to the demand by the workers of certain nominal standards from the state which are increasingly insisted upon as the condition of business enterprise” (1922b, 32). Citing schemes including that proposed by the Coal Commission of 1919, he argued: “Capitalism, in fact, prepares monopolies which immediately affect the community towards some form of state administration” (1922b, 32). Laski stressed that such a development need involve neither revolution nor even a transition toward a socialistic state. As he now saw it: “All that would seem to be implied would be the removal of industries essential to the welfare of the community from the danger of exploitation of private interests” (1922b, 33). In a period of universal suffrage, he insisted, “it ought to be possible to capture the seat of power at the polls, and throw upon the capitalist the onus of revolting against a socialist democracy” (1922b, 41). As is discussed later in this chapter, even though he would begin to concede in the late 1920s that Marxism held the key to an understanding of the limits of politics in capitalist states, he always clung to these democratic ideals. Laski’s Socialist Corporatism The direction in which Laski’s thought was heading in the early 1920s became clear in his pamphlet The State in the New Social Order of 1922, in which he advocated “a Parliament with the taxing power, which lays down the fundamental rules, and administers, through the Cabinet, the matters of general citizenship. Below it would be territorial and functional institutions” (1922c, 13). As part of this scheme basic monopolies such as coal, power, transport, and land would be nationalized, and channels of response provided to minimize the perceived lack of freedom identified among the miners by the Sankey Commission (1922c, 3–4). The democratization of industrial control and the decentralization of political control would thus be introduced. But importantly, he added that this would depend upon rights of property being limited by so organizing social institutions “that they leave each citizen who desires the sense of freedom in their working to perform, where he has the capacity, responsible functions” (1922c, 10). The latter goal

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would require a system of education that would enable citizens to express themselves effectively (1922c, 13–14). Laski was thus beginning to formulate the detailed recommendations for a political system that he would set out comprehensively in A Grammar of Politics three years later. This seems to have been the main purpose of his work of the period. Indeed, the essays in The Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays were, he claimed in the preface to that book, “part of a scaffolding from which there is, I hope, eventually to emerge a general reconstruction of the state” (1921a, ix). This purpose seems to have been overlooked by his greatest critic, Deane, who, as we have seen, attempted to divide Laski’s thought into sharply defined chronological phases. By defining Laski’s pluralist phase as the period from 1915 to 1924 he referred (1955, 60–7) to both Tawney and Laski’s introduction to Haldane’s report, and Laski’s pamphlet The State in the New Social Order, to support his argument that Laski was inconsistent within this phase. But it is more appropriate to interpret these two works in terms of a bridge between Laski’s early theories and his development in A Grammar of a scheme to address the inadequacies of the monistic state. Claiming that this scheme was more realistic than that of the guild socialists, he dismissed Cole’s idea of a Joint Council or Congress, arguing that “the real issue is not the paper-construction of such an organ, but weighting the functions which compose it” (1925a, 138). Laski continued to stress the importance of functional independence and individual freedom; but he now believed (1925a, 75 and 139) that, where all citizens shared interests in common, a strong state was essential. Hence, his scheme would retain a legislative system based on the territorial principle for administrative convenience; but there would still be functional and territorial decentralization in specific activities, and compulsory consultation with representatives of relevant groups prior to policy decisions (1925a, chs. 8 and 9). In order to fulfill its role of “enabling the mass of men to realise social good on the largest possible scale,” he argued, the state’s functions should necessarily be “confined to promoting certain uniformities of conduct” and “will shrink and enlarge as experiment seems to warrant” (1925a, 25). He had come to the conclusion that, in a large industrial society, the unqualified devolution of functional power would be unworkable. What he now believed to be necessary was a system wherein the state’s functions would be conducted with the greatest possible input from the representatives of functional groups, whose members would be able to articulate their interests on an equal basis. Laski’s work of the early to mid-1920s reflects the need for associationalist theories to accept some form of accountable central agency that retains significant regulatory power. This was a view that was echoed in the 1990s

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when, in his revival of associationalism, Paul Hirst stressed (1993, 117 and 130–1; 1994, 42) that an unregulated collection of self-interested groups would be unsatisfactory. The decentralization of functions to appropriate levels would need to be conducted by a federal public power, which maintained standards, principles, and rights. The question is, however, whether capitalism can accommodate the long-term cooperation of such a system in the event of economic decline. This was, indeed, a question that Laski came to face in the 1920s, when he reflected upon Mussolini’s seizure and consolidation of power in Italy. The rise of Italian fascism was considered by some on the Left, notably the German Marxist August Thalheimer (1983 [1928]), as an instance similar to that of the Bonaparte regime in France in the mid-nineteenth century. Bonaparte’s coup had, according to Marx (1968a [1852]), been welcomed by capitalists who were happy to see the state take authoritarian rather than liberal measures if the result was to be the maintenance of the existing economic order. Laski was himself aware that an unconstitutional reaction to the type of system he proposed was possible. He conceded that such a system would require the “economic rulers of our society” to make great sacrifices. Their refusal would, however, spell disaster. Great change was imminent in some form. This, he predicted, would lead to either “the end of coherent civilization” or alternatively “at the least, the prospect of an orderly society built upon justice” (1925a, 507–8). Laski anticipated criticism from the far Left that his plans were timid and conservative. Communists, he acknowledged, complained that his schemes implied “the development of a new society within the shell of the old” (1925a, 505–6), rather than the rapid or complete demise of the present phase of capitalism. His schemes envisaged that class war, which lay at the root of the existing social structure, could be overcome by harmonizing the interests of both side of industry. He did, however, recognize the enormity of this task, conceding (1925a, 507) that his plans would require the triumph of reason, which would be necessary to prevent revolution, capitalist reaction, capitalist dictatorship, and guerrilla warfare. Laski continued for the rest of his life to urge that constitutional measures should always be attempted. He came, however, to concede that he had underestimated the resistance with which even moderate socialist plans would be faced. Whilst he maintained consistency in the view that peaceful change would require the capitalist class to see reason, he began to see that the capitalist state constrained democracy within boundaries that narrowed in times of economic crisis. An important milestone in the development of this new phase of his thought was the British General Strike of 1926.

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The Roots of Laski’s Marxism The General Strike erupted at a time when the coal industry, having failed to modernize after the First World War, faced shrinking markets and increasing competition from abroad. Faced with the pound’s overvaluation by the Gold Standard, price cuts were necessary if exports were to be competitive. The mine owners demanded that pay be cut; but the miners resisted and were subsequently locked out. In support, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called successfully upon workers in key industries to strike from May 4. Although the miners rejected a settlement drawn up by the Samuel Royal Commission, which had been set up to study the problems of the industry, the TUC was anxious to resolve the dispute quickly. The Strike was thus called off after only nine days, on the mistaken assumption that the Conservative government was about to accept the settlement. The miners remained locked out, only to surrender in total defeat in November (Morris 1976). Laski approached the Strike with great caution. The government had, for some time, been making contingency plans to deal with a challenge from organized labor to the capitalist system (Morris 1976, ch. 4); hence, whilst Laski actively supported the unions, he did so on condition that there would be no challenge to constitutional government (see Howe, ed. 1953, 839–40). He claimed, moreover, that a continuation of the Strike might have led to a revolutionary situation and its disastrous consequences. The government would, he argued, not only have the resources that the miners lacked for a lengthy strike, but also resort to the use of troops and strike breakers to provoke violence (1926a, 665). He would soon witness the extent of the government’s reaction to even the peacefully conducted strike. In June 1926 the government claimed that the Strike had been unlawful and unconstitutional in its attempt to pressure an elected government to change its policy. Laski dismissed this claim, arguing (1926b, 103–4) that the purely industrial ends of the largely sympathetic strike meant that it was legal under the terms of the Trades Disputes Act of 1906. If the reaction to the strike alarmed him it was, in fact, only the beginning of the response to organized labor. The following year the government passed a new Trades Disputes Act, which illegalized not only sympathetic strikes but also both direct and indirect attempts to coerce governments into inflicting hardships onto the community (Pelling 1976, 187). As the Act was proceeding through parliament, Laski accepted as genuine the desire of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin for peace. But Laski added (1927a, 192–3) that the General Strike had brought to the fore of the Conservative Party deliberate reactionaries

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who, in the desire to make the world safe for businessmen, felt that democracy needed to be tamed. Largely as a result of the General Strike and its aftermath, Laski began to revise his assessment of Marxism. In 1927 he argued, in his book Communism, that the relations between governments and the British miners since the War had bolstered the Marxist theory that the actual purpose of governments in capitalist societies was to uphold the economic system. Questioning governmental impartiality regarding miners and mine owners, he claimed: “Whenever the interests of capitalism have required it, the results of enquiries have been evaded; and even when their tenor has been verbally accepted, care has been taken to deny their spirit in applying them” (1927b, 83). Nevertheless, being still highly critical of Marxist revolutionary doctrine, he predicted once again (1927b, 84) that the resources available to capitalist reaction meant that revolution would fail and lead to fascist dictatorship. He repeated (1927b, 87) his earlier view that, with better industrial organization and the prospects of discovery, capitalism might even be able to satisfy the main wants of the workers. But he continued to express the view, noted earlier in this chapter, that it ought to be possible, in an era of universal suffrage, to “throw upon the capitalist the onus of revolt against a socialist democracy.” “For,” he went on, that would associate with the socialist government not only its active supporters, but that large section of people in any modern community who, desiring to be let alone, believe profoundly in constitutionalism; and while at the best it would retain the services of the army and navy, at the worst it would so divide them as to neutralise its greatest opponent. (1927b, 172) Laski’s warnings in Communism against revolution, and his approach in the book to the possibility of evolutionary change, drew a critical response from the Communist Party intellectual Ralph Fox (1927, 40–96), which bore a striking resemblance to that which Laski had anticipated in A Grammar. This is an important point in that it reflects the nature of the beginning of Laski’s drift toward Marxism. It was Marx’s ideas themselves, rather than their Marxist Leninist derivatives, which appealed to Laski at this stage. He was, moreover, selective in the aspects and interpretations of Marx that he took on board. Having always been critical of the historical materialist emphasis on economic considerations that neglected factors such as religion, race, and nationality (1922b, 32–4), he was not about to accept a strictly determinist line. As will be discussed in a moment, this crucial point was

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ignored by Deane, for whom Laski’s approach to Marxism betrayed confusion. Furthermore, although Laski’s attempt to escape from economic determinism was recognized by Miliband (1993, 178), he only mentioned this aspect of Laski’s thought very briefly, without elaboration. The point is evident in an article of 1928, in which Laski argued that the real strength of Marxism was its doctrine that political power was the handmaid of economic power. “A mere ballot-box democracy is,” he went on, “as a consequence, utterly unreal in the presence of large inequalities of property. . .” (1928a, 25). Of equal importance to the developing combination in his thought of pluralism and Marxism, he was still pressing (1928b) at this time for the reform of parliamentary systems in order first, to institutionalize consultation at the central level; second, devolve power on both functional and territorial bases; and third, introduce education, which would equip every citizen with the means to understand and contribute to the revised system. Now, as Deane saw it (1955, 129–33), Laski’s adoption of a Marxist class analysis without embracing economic determinism was a serious intellectual error. But by interpreting Marxism so narrowly he could not appreciate Laski’s ability to combine Marxist and democratic ideas by adopting a flexible interpretation of historical materialism. For Laski, if the political and other elements could push the ultimately determining economic element, this would provide the necessary scope for the peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. In both Communism (1927b, 79–80) and his article of 1928 (1928a, 27) Laski repeated his earlier dissatisfaction with historical materialist theory. He now conceded (1927b, 77–9; 1928a, 23 and 27), however, that the main outline of history was guided by the economic factor. He thus took a similar line to that of Engels who, in his famous letter to Bloch, suggested (1968 [1895], 682) that Marx and he had always recognized that while political, religious, and other elements influenced the course of history, the economic element was the ultimately determining one. In Communism Laski claimed that although Marx sometimes appeared to offer a strictly materialist theory of history this was misleading. As a rule, Marx was “insistent upon the limits within which the theory applies; and he was well aware that while productive systems act upon men, men also react upon productive systems” (1927b, 83). This approach allowed Laski to continue to encourage the attempt to transcend capitalism by constitutional means. Indeed, notwithstanding the waning of his confidence that parliamentary socialism might loosen the grip of capitalist interests on power, he saw no peaceful alternative but to use such means. As the 1929 general election drew near, moreover, he took an even

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more cautious approach to socialist change. In response to Labour supporters who pressed for revolutionary change through constitutional means, he argued that the party leaders “realise that, given the utmost goodwill, you cannot socialize an economic system overnight” (1929a, 423–4). When Labour formed a minority government after the election he recognized that, in order to appeal to his party’s Liberal partners, Ramsay MacDonald would form a cabinet which was Right of Center in composition. MacDonald’s task, Laski argued (1929b, 69–76), would be to reconcile the right and left wings of the Labour Party. From this perspective, in the hope of securing the consent of the vested interests for gradual social change, he wrote directly (see MP Manchester, envelope 8) to MacDonald in support of the latter’s very moderate leadership during the first few months of the Labour government. Laski recognized the problems of this strategy. To pay for legislation to introduce social equality there would have to be high taxation, particularly of unearned income. The question, for him, was whether a class whose monopoly of economic power was firmly entrenched could “be persuaded to abdicate from its control, in the interests of the nation as a whole.” In his view one could, during the General Strike, “detect the ugly indignation of a class whose supremacy was threatened . . . ” (1929a, 433). The Trade Union Act of 1927 was, he went, “to millions of trade unionists, a deliberate piece of class legislation with no other purpose than to protect the employer from the power of the unions” (1929a, 435). Hence, he was not even confident that, should Labour win the next election, MacDonald would be “permitted peacefully to satisfy demands which imply an immediate alteration to the existing social system” (1929b, 82). Can one be certain, he enquired, “that the forces of Conservatism are so wedded to order that they will accept without question the verdict of the electorate?” Could England enjoy a rare example of “revolution by consent?” Could “a social conception of property-rights replace an individualist conception without conflict and violence?” (1929b, 82). Over the following two years Laski urged (1930b; 1931a) the capitalist class to recognize that the failure to reform the existing state system would lead to its destruction by the increasingly powerful force of world communism. But, as the growing economic crisis made it even more difficult to secure even minor concessions from the vested interests, his pessimism increased. As he conceded (LP Hull, DLA 33) in private correspondence to Frida Laski from March to June 1931, the worsening of the crisis made him anxious for the government to be defeated so that the Labour Party could sort out its problems in opposition. But, as we shall now see, when defeat did come its circumstances had a dramatic effect upon his views of both the possibility of constitutional socialist change, and the nature of capitalist democracy itself.

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Laski’s Marxism The Labour government of 1929 faced the problem of maintaining the value of the pound, which remained overvalued by the Gold Standard. There was stern opposition from business and finance to reflationary policies involving extensive governmental intervention. Furthermore, the Labour Party shared the widespread opposition to devaluation. Third, Labour opposed deflation because of its social consequences. However, under pressure from its international financiers, the government decided that spending cuts would have to be made, thus causing a rift with the TUC and a large section of the Labour Party that refused to accept reductions in unemployment insurance payments (McKibbin 1975). With his party divided, MacDonald went to the king to resign in August 1931. However, he returned to report to the party that, at the monarch’s request, he had formed a National government with the support of the Conservative and Liberal leaders (Skidelsky 1994, 334–83). With the Labour Party discredited and in disarray that year MacDonald led the National government, which was in fact dominated by the Conservative Party, to a landslide electoral victory. Labour’s representation was cut from 287 MPs elected in 1929 to 52, with many leading figures losing their seats (Skidelsky 1994, 385; Eatwell and Wright 1978, 38–9). Laski was astonished at the result. He had, he revealed (FSP London, A7/4 48) in a letter to the Fabian Society General Secretary F.W. Galton in November, expected Labour to retain at least 150 seats. As he began to see the situation, the preceding events had brought into the open a fundamental question about British constitutional practice. Was the constitution strong enough, he now wondered, to cope with the violent policy reversals that now seemed likely? Could the country really face its problems in unison “when one section of the community has set definite limits to the area in which the will of the other (which may at any moment become a parliamentary majority) may operate?” (1931b, 46). The following year Laski claimed that MacDonald’s acceptance of the king’s request to form the National government was unconstitutional, representing a “Palace Revolution” (1932a, 34). Capitalism, Laski argued (1932a, 46–7), required a government that would not encroach upon vested interests. Credit would have been withheld had the Labour government not cut benefits, which were a safeguard against low pay. Labour, which effectively could not govern, had been replaced by a National government that would accept the demands of capital. Subsequently, Laski argued (1932a, 46–8), the electorate was persuaded that stability would be threatened by a Labour

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government but maintained by the National government. The implications, in his view, were: The will of the House of Commons cannot prevail. The centre of effective authority lies in the hands of a small knot of financiers, responsible, let it be added, to no one, who will have the fate of the nation in their hands. If they are dissatisfied with the plans of such a Labour Government, they will, in effect, wreck the pound. (1932a, 49) Laski now questioned whether evolutionary socialism had “deceived itself into believing that it can establish itself by peaceful means within the ambit of the capitalist system” (1932a, 9). The Crisis of 1931 had, he reflected, cast doubt upon the traditional hypothesis that an electoral victory could pave the way to socialism. Whilst it was necessary to achieve the conquest of a majority, he stressed, “the recent emergency makes one wonder whether the serious problems will not begin when its end is reached” (1932a, 56). He began (1932b) to fear that the communists might, after all, be correct in their assumption that the road to socialism must be through violent revolution and proletarian dictatorship. Nevertheless, he continued to resist this growing fear by insisting that no effort should be spared to prove that reason would prevail, and he appealed to the public the following year not to lose faith in constitutional politics. It was, he insisted, “urgent to rely upon [reason] until it has been demonstrated that no attention to, or respect for, its conclusions is likely to be displayed by our opponents” (1933c). The 1931 Crisis was, thus, highly influential upon Laski’s shift to the Left. But a point of controversy is the role of the Crisis in consolidating the position of Marxism in his thought. Deane suggested (1955, 139–40, 153–6, and 169–71) that, after the Crisis, Laski quite suddenly abandoned his earlier liberal ideas for an uncompromising Marxian approach. As we shall see in a moment Deane was convinced, moreover, that Laski’s Marxism was incoherent. Michael Newman, on the other hand, suggests correctly (1993, 149) that the change was very gradual. But Newman’s interpretation misses an important point. He argues (1993, 159) that until Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany in 1933 Laski believed the truth of Marxist theory to be contingent upon the failure of capitalism to either reform or recover. Newman underestimates the significance of Laski’s adoption after the General Strike of a flexible approach to Marx’s theories. By the late 1920s Laski had begun to accept the Marxist class analysis of society. The 1931 Crisis served as confirmation that the existing society was one of class dominance. Hence, it was futile to believe in the possibility of class harmony

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within the existing economic order. What remained contingent in his mind was the possibility of overcoming such class dominance by constitutional means. This was in turn contingent upon the capitalist class consenting to the fundamental changes that would, ultimately, have to be faced in some form or another. The 1931 Crisis increased Laski’s doubts that class dominance could be overcome constitutionally; moreover Hitler’s seizure of power consolidated the gradual change that had already taken place in Laski’s thought. Nevertheless, Laski continued for the rest of his life to hold a selective and flexible interpretation of Marxism. As he experienced the domestic and international crises of the 1930s and 1940s his belief that capitalist democracy could be transcended constitutionally waxed and waned. Laski’s approach is presented quite clearly in his book Democracy in Crisis of 1933. In the event of a socialist electoral victory in Britain, he suggested (1933b, 243), the forces of property would have to make a choice between cooperating in the erosion of their principles or refusing to accept the result. By choosing the first option, the victory of parliamentary democracy would be the most notable in the historical record. But he was afraid that political democracy would not be allowed to encroach too far upon the interests of the dominant class. Parliamentary democracy had, he elaborated, “been successful in the difficult task of enabling the outworks of the capitalist system to be surrendered to its opponents; it has at no point solved the central problem of the inner citadel’s surrender” (1933b, 51). Parliamentary democracy had, importantly, in many situations discovered ways and means to achieve a compromise. However, some differences between classes seemed beyond such compromise, throwing into doubt the possibility of a parliamentary road to a new equilibrium. This acknowledgment that capitalist societies provided a political space wherein democracy could operate was, according to Deane, inconsistent with the Marxist tenets adopted by Laski. As Deane saw it, Laski did not explain how his Marxist theory could accommodate “such crucial examples of modern legislation as minimum-wage laws or progressive personal and corporate income laws” (1955, 158). Deane cited the U.S. legal system to support his case. If, he wondered (1955, 159), the courts did serve merely as one aspect of the state apparatus, which the ruling class used as a coercive means to defend its class interests, how could Laski account for the many lengthy and highly contested struggles that had always characterized relations between the president, congress, and judiciary? In Deane’s view, Laski’s attempt to account for such struggles in terms of concessions to the exploited class “reduces the Marxist analysis to absurdity . . .” (1955, 167). But, by

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interpreting Marxism so narrowly, he could not appreciate the way in which Laski (see 1933d) accepted Marx’s theory of the class-dominated society whilst recognizing that class conflict could be avoided so long as capitalism could continue to expand. This issue of the limits of political action was a central aspect of Laski’s thought of the 1930s, and leads us back to Miliband’s brief suggestion that Laski was concerned with the “relative autonomy” of the state. In order to elaborate on this suggestion, it will be necessary at this point to sketch very briefly the key themes of the major relative autonomy theories. In the 1960s and early 1970s many on the Left debated the ability of liberal democratic institutions to foster capitalism by legitimating the inequalities of power and wealth. A neo-Marxist tradition began to revolve around the idea that the state could operate with relative autonomy from either the capitalist class or the capitalist economic system. Some argued that whilst social democratic governments might work against the immediate aims of capitalists, the entire state apparatus was unified by class cohesion. The dominant economic interests were maintained by the state, which acted as an instrument of class power. Other theorists argued that the class divisions of society were condensed and played out in the state. Because the dominant economic class did not always get the upper hand the state appeared to be class neutral, thus securing support from groups outside the dominant class. Nevertheless, this version insisted that the state acted in the long-term interests of the dominant economic class, even if this sometimes required recourse to an apparently class-neutral authoritarian regime. A third, broadly functional tradition of neo-Marxism held that, whilst it may act against the apparent interests of certain dominant class interests, the state was guided ultimately by structural forces into preserving the capitalist mode of production (see Dunleavy and O’Leary 1987, 236–58). These three categories of relative autonomy theory need not be exclusive of one another. The idea of the state as an arbiter can help illustrate the political workings of the functional process, whilst the instrumentalist theme can be seen to illustrate the roles of administration and organization by state personnel whose ideological perspectives are shaped through the media and education system (see McLennan 1989, 115–18). Laski’s work provides an early example of such a combination. The boundaries within which the state operated were central to his work in the 1930s. “In normal times,” he claimed in Democracy in Crisis, “there is freedom of movement within the accepted limits of capitalist assumptions; if these are denied, the conventions upon which the whole fabric rests are called into question” (1933b, 97–8). The reason why the Labour government of 1929 introduced nonsocialist

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measures was not one of a change of ideology. Rather, the introduction of such measures constituted the government’s only, unfulfilled, hope of clinging to power. The functional restraints upon governments working within capitalist democracy were of great concern to Laski. Notwithstanding Labour’s refrain from radicalism, the economic system had been disrupted by a government that failed to maintain the confidence of business and finance. Through the failure to fulfill this functional role the government had lost the confidence of an electorate that was concerned above all else with stability. Laski was not content, however, to point to these constraints. Addressing the issue of human agency, he stressed the importance of an institutional structure influenced considerably by the socialization process. In the history of parliamentary democracy, he argued, the people were taught that the conquest of political power would make them masters of the state. But this power was found to be insufficient. The people had found that, should they oppose economic privilege, institutions including the courts, the press, the education system, the military, and the bureaucracy would operate instrumentally against them on behalf of the privileged class. This organized power of the state would be employed in the defense of the privileged should the people take revolutionary action. He reflected, moreover, that even if a people’s government took control of the state by constitutional means, the people “found, first, that they could not count upon its instruments of action, and, second, that their opponents were not always prepared to observe the traditions they themselves respected” (1933b, 53). Laski saw the rise of fascism in these terms, perceiving the authoritarian state as the savior of capitalism when the class struggle could no longer be contained within the liberal democratic state. In the expansionary phase of capitalism the demands of the working classes could be met without harm to the dominant class interests; but with international capitalism now in contraction social reform placed the rights of property in danger (1933b, 25). He argued in an article, shortly before the Nazis came to power in 1933, that one could now witness the unwillingness of the governing classes to alter the essential characteristics of capitalist society to their disadvantage. This was, for him, “a malaise of representative democracy” (1933e, 22). He republished the article as a pamphlet, with a new title, soon after Hitler’s seizure of power. There were only two minor changes (1933f, 3 and 10), each of which referred to the Nazi victory. His view of the problems of capitalist democracy was thus consolidated. If the contraction of the boundaries of democracy provoked unrest amongst the working classes, Laski believed, the state would use its coercive power and attempt to justify this on the basis of its sovereign right to

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maintain law and order for the nation. For him, fascism was the most blatant example of such coercion. The various national forms of fascism had, he argued in 1934, in the preface to the third edition of A Grammar (1938a, 2–3), been adopted for the purpose of attacking democratic institutions in order to safeguard the interests of the property owners. Hitler’s record illustrated this problem. Only thus could one explain the widespread attacks that were now being widely witnessed on freedom of speech, due process in political offences, and the right to strike. Whenever the traditional foundations of economic individualism were challenged democratically, property owners sought to change the system that made the democratic challenge possible. Laski returned to this problem in The State in Theory and Practice, which was published the following year. The experience of fascism had provided the clearest possible clue to the nature of the state. The coercive power of the state was essentially a power to protect the stability of the existing class system. Such power could not be used to alter the system of class relations. This meant that if social institutions operated in ways that would threaten that stability “the state will move to attack them in the name of law and order” (1935a, 134–5). A problem with Laski’s interpretation was that it overestimated the degree to which the dictatorships were controlled by big business. This was particularly evident in his foreword (1937b) to R.A. Brady’s book on Hitler’s regime. Brady (1937) discussed the way in which the Nazis reorganized science, industry, agriculture, education, and recreation to make them correspond with their ideological aims. In his view, the motive behind the Nazi system was to extend to and enforce upon the whole nation “the rules, the behaviour patterns, and the points of view of the ordinary autocratically governed business enterprise” (1937, 34–5). Laski claimed that the conclusion which emerged from Brady’s study was “that fascism is nothing but monopoly-capitalism imposing its will on the masses whom it has deliberately transformed into its slaves” (1937b, 11). In The State in Theory and Practice Laski even appeared to offer a strict determinist interpretation. “The Fascist state, like any other, must,” he suggested, “obey its fundamental postulates; and these, by the fact that the private ownership of the means of production is maintained, imply subordination of its habits to the motive of private profit” (1935a, 134). In a number of passages he described fascism as an instrument of capitalist dominance, tightly controlled by the economic system. This gave ammunition to critics who portrayed him as a simplistic and confused writer. Indeed, Deane claimed: “As a means of analysing the factors in the rise of Fascism, the mid-nineteenth-century apparatus of a rationalistic economic determinism,

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which Laski borrows from Marxism, is altogether inappropriate” (1955, 162). As we have seen, such a deterministic interpretation would be wholly incompatible with the fundamental tenets of Laski’s philosophy. Referring in The State in Theory and Practice to Engels’s letter to Bloch, he claimed that Marx and Engels had always emphasized that there was “an interweaving reciprocity between all the different factors of any culture-pattern” (1935a, 158). This was indeed the case in the growth of the fascist doctrines and regimes. What was crucial, however, was that the noneconomic factors were founded on economic problems in the various countries. Unless the fascist doctrines rested on such problems, he stressed, “their non-economic content would have remained interesting ideological eccentricities without the ability to use the power of the state to compel acceptance of them” (1935a, 158). From this perspective Laski wrote a critical review (1936c) of Gaetano Salvemini’s detailed study of Italian fascism. Salvemini (1936, 413–18) rejected claims that fascism was a capitalist dictatorship. In his view (1936, 419) capitalism could survive only because the army officers, the civil service, and the Fascist Party were bureaucracies, which kept the middle, lower middle, and working classes in obedience. Mussolini himself, Salvemini argued (1936, 422), had to play off these bureaucracies against one another. But Laski questioned whether Mussolini would be able to move to the Left without making a fatal sacrifice of the support or acquiescence of big business. Whilst the interests of the fascist bureaucracy differed from those of its business clients, it was the latter who collectively defined the limits within which the regime could operate. Mussolini, he stressed, “maintains his power because he is the business man’s guarantee of the existing class-structure” (1936c, 122). Although he rejected strict economic determinism Laski was, thus, concerned with the limited political space within which a state could operate in a society dominated by the economic power of a particular class. Despite his disclaimers, this led him to place too little emphasis on the noneconomic factors of fascism. Fascists depended upon a mass base of support, appealing to the middle classes who felt threatened by the rise of communism (Trevor-Roper 1968). Laski mentioned this only very briefly (1935a, 284–5). Many passages in his work do, moreover, leave the impression that he saw fascism as the direct agent of capitalism. But, as he did acknowledge the importance of noneconomic factors, this seems to have been a case of carelessness rather than ignorance of the complexities of fascism. It was not until the 1940s that Laski offered a closer analysis of fascism, thus illustrating the other important features. During the Second World War

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he claimed (1940a, ch. 2; 1943a, ch. 3) that the dictatorships gained substantial autonomy from their capitalist partners, and even came to dominate big business in planning for war. This was a process that the Austrian Marxist Otto Bauer (1983a [1936]; 1983b [1938]) had anticipated in the 1930s. Hence, even in the 1940s Laski wrote nothing particularly original about fascism. Nevertheless, his argument in the 1930s that the fascist dictatorships substantiated his theory of the problems of capitalist democracy was not entirely unfounded. Whilst the fascist parties did rely on the worried middle classes for their base of mass support, big business and bankers collaborated in recognition that the regimes served their interests (Kitchen 1976, ch. 8). Laski saw this collaboration in terms of the entry of capitalism into a phase of contraction. This situation brought into focus the contradiction between economic oligarchy and political democracy. Seeing the latter as a threat to their security, the owning class insisted that the ends served by capitalism must confine democracy. They portrayed the limitations on democracy as temporary sacrifices that the people should bear for the good of the country. However, once the temporary character of those sacrifices was thrown into doubt, the owning class used the power of the state to repress criticisms and other perceived threats. “If,” he went on, “these actions are not enough to restore the security the challenge to which they fear, as in Italy and Germany, they frankly abandon their belief in political democracy” (1938a, xv). What then, in Laski’s view, were the consequences for the prospects of achieving socialism by constitutional means? He was still resolutely opposed to violent revolution and committed firmly to democracy. Hence, he would never take the line of communists such as R. Palme Dutt (1935) that the only way out of the crisis would be through an international system of proletarian dictatorships. For Laski, the only acceptable solution was to try to break through the boundaries of capitalist democracy on the basis of a parliamentary victory. Indeed, as Miliband would later suggest, a main theme of Laski’s work became “the question whether liberal democracy could be stretched far enough to accommodate fundamental social change—in effect revolutionary change within the ambit of the constitutional order” (1993, 178). Laski sought throughout the 1930s and 1940s to find a way to answer this in the affirmative. Revolution by Consent After the 1931 Crisis Laski became a prominent member of the Socialist League—a party faction which stressed that a future Labour government would need to radically overhaul Britain’s constitutional procedures.

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He (1933b, ch. 2; 1933g) and the League’s leading member in parliament, Sir Stafford Cripps (1933), each believed that, in order to withstand financial or industrial sabotage, socialist policy would require emergency powers by which to radically change the workings and relations of parliament and executive. Laski was less confident than Cripps that such measures would forestall reaction. Rather than cooperate with a socialist experiment, he stressed, the forces of capitalism “may well prefer the alternative of fighting” (1933b, 233). Hence, it would be necessary to throw the onus of conflict onto the opposition. If a socialist party were to achieve its aims through parliamentary means, he argued (1933b, 110–11 and 250), it would be important to gain legitimacy by fully acquainting the electorate with its policies and the reason why they needed to be carried through. It would be crucial to make unambiguously clear that their policies would involve a break with, rather than continuity with, capitalism. If the Labour Party came to be elected on such grounds this would help vindicate its radicalism. On this basis he made what was, perhaps, his most controversial statement of socialist strategy: the government would have to “suspend the classic formulae of normal opposition” (1933b, 87). This, moreover, would involve a guarantee from the Conservative Party that, if it were to come to power after a future election, the socialist transformation would not be disrupted by the repeal of legislation. Whether such guarantees would be given and, indeed, subsequently implemented would be the question on which rested the possibility of peace amongst classes. What was certain, in his eyes, was “that the natural history of a legislative assembly under such conditions would be quite different from anything we have previously known” (1933b, 87). As we shall see shortly, these proposals for a policy statement would come to haunt him. After Labour’s defeat at the general election of 1935 Laski reiterated (1936d) his point that the party must set out to transcend capitalism, and moreover to spell out this intention clearly to the electorate. But two years later, in Parliamentary Government in England, he conceded that a parliamentary challenge to capitalism would raise an important question whether the psychological strains and stresses of a socialist transformation of the state are “greater than a system of representative democracy can bear” (1938b, 25). If this were so, he claimed, the British constitution could be considered as “merely an expression in political terms of a special parallelogram of economic forces.” The classic form of parliamentary government would no longer be feasible. Such a form would, he elaborated, be proven to be “a type of government suitable to capitalism in its period of expansion, but incapable of maintaining itself in the period of capitalism’s decline” (1938b, 25–6).

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If not, then the British constitution would be the first to witness a nonviolent change in the class structure of society. The issue, for Laski, was whether the degree of political autonomy was such as to allow a socialist government to break through the barriers of capitalism. Whilst events in Europe made such prospects seem bleak, in the United States Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal gave Laski hope that a precedent might be established there. Shortly after Roosevelt had taken office in 1933 Laski claimed that there was, in Europe, “a widespread opinion, rather, perhaps, felt than realized, that the United States has entered upon a period of positive policy after a long epoch of laissez faire” (1933h, 707). But, whilst he respected (1932c; 1933i) Roosevelt’s aim of regulating and reconstructing capitalism, Laski stressed that socialization rather than reconstruction was ultimately needed, and that there would be little hope of radical change unless capitalism was itself challenged. Nevertheless, he thought it just possible that the New Deal might provide the basis for the gradual introduction of socialism. A problem was that Roosevelt’s widely popular projects to revive industry and farming, reduce unemployment, and alleviate poverty, were considered by businessmen as encroachments upon their freedom (Leuchtenburg 1963; Simpson 1989, ch. 3). In recognition of this problem Laski suggested in 1934: “Business men and financiers will not seriously be won to Mr. Roosevelt’s programme until its success is proved by the return of prosperity; and prosperity is unlikely to return unless he can win the support of the financiers and business men” (1934a, 149). “The President,” Laski went on, was asking the businessmen and financiers who built and controlled the existing order “to abdicate from their control. He seeks to socialize the profitmaking motive by making its operation subordinate to a body of ethical principles from which their practice has been totally alien” (1934a, 150). This meant that Roosevelt was, thus, rather optimistically “attempting a revolution by consent” (1934a, 144). In 1936 Laski once again drew attention (1936e) to the problems Roosevelt faced in attempting to make democracy prevail over big business. He noted (1936e, 509, 513, and 515) that the New Deal faced opposition from, first, a Supreme Court that overruled many of the president’s measures on the basis of unconstitutionality; and, second, state legislatures that, dominated by businessmen, could use legal powers to block measures which impinged upon vested interests. The constitution itself, Laski argued (1936e, 507–11), had been designed in 1787 to safeguard property from democratic pressures, and been upheld by the Supreme Court ever since. Perhaps surprisingly, considering his lifelong campaign to increase the accountability of the state, Laski claimed (1939b) at the end of the 1930s that

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a major problem of U.S. politics was the federal division of power. In an era of large-scale capitalism in contraction, there was a need for greater federal control to ensure that there were at least minimum standards in fields such as health, education, unemployment relief, labor conditions, the railways, and electricity. The problem was that interference by the states put the administration of such fields under the control of the capitalist interests, which were able to exert their influence through the legislatures. This argument for greater centralization appears, at first glance, to suggest that he had abandoned his pluralist ideas completely. However, what it in fact reflected was the view he had come to hold that the capitalist system disallows the pluralist nature of society to be represented through the institutions of political democracy. As was mentioned in chapter 1, he conceded (1939a, 70) in 1939 that a pluralist relationship between the state, groups, and individuals could only work if the class divisions of capitalism gave way to an egalitarian society. The following year, in his book The American Presidency (1940c), Laski argued that even a strong president such as Roosevelt would face severe opposition from the business community. This was because the constitutional checks included a restraint upon the power of the presidency itself. For the Founding Fathers, he argued, a strong executive had meant “the risk of interference from Washington. Interference meant a disturbance of the confidence upon which businessmen depend. Government regulation and business prosperity were deemed—still are largely deemed—mighty opposites” (1940c, 26). This meant that, for the New Deal to succeed, Roosevelt would need to secure a revolution with the consent of the business community. In the 1940s Laski came to the conclusion that Roosevelt’s attempt to reform capitalism had failed. The New Deal had produced little in the way of permanent impact upon the power of American capitalism. Businessmen had, he claimed in The American Democracy of 1948, considered Roosevelt’s New Deal to be “in method nothing so much as a contradiction in terms of all the principles upon which they had been accustomed to rely” (1948b, 188). Those principles had, however, prevailed, with the result that wholesale changes to ownership and control had not been forthcoming. As he put it: “Ownership and control remained fundamentally in the same hands as before President Roosevelt entered the White House” (1948b, 178). Laski had always suspected that big business and finance would not consent to a major redistribution of economic power in the United States. But, after the outbreak of the Second World War, he saw a glimmer of hope in Britain. Toward the end of 1939 he declared that history had “given to the members of the Labour Party one of those fateful moments in the life of a civilisation when it is open to them to reshape the destiny of the world”

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(1940d, 136). The war against Hitler was an expression of capitalism in crisis, and Labour’s task was to convince the electorate that only a socialist Britain could maintain and extend democracy. Nevertheless, even if the electorate were convinced, there would, he warned, be enemies within who would try to “sacrifice democracy if it threatened the vested interests for which they stand” (1940d, 134). When Labour joined the Conservatives in a coalition government Laski came to believe that, with growing evidence that the public was ready for great changes, “the Churchill government is increasingly aware that the recognition of the need for those changes is the key to victory” (1940e, 1529). Hence, the opportunity to take advantage of the general mood, which might vanish in peacetime, should not be missed. The deepening of democracy and freedom should, he argued in his article “Revolution by Consent,” be begun at once. But in acknowledgment of the magnitude of the task he conceded that, in the long run, this would mean “a new social faith, a transvaluation of all values.” He summarized his view of the necessary changes as follows: I know . . . that to ask for their initiation by consent, as I am now doing, is to ask for the display of magnanimity which is one of the rarest qualities in history. I ask for it, nevertheless, on two grounds. I ask for it, first, because, in any profound way, we cannot win the war without it; and I ask for it, in the second place, because there is no other way to the creative use of victory. (1941a, 350) In his wartime tract Where Do We Go from Here? (1940b) Laski argued that capitalist cooperation with revolutionary changes would strengthen the country’s ability to wage war against Hitler. But this was not all; such cooperation would bring about a compromise. Whilst the privileged would give up more than they would want to, the workers would gain less than they might have come to expect. This would have two important implications: “first that what it exacts from the privileged is far less than the outlaws would demand, and, second, that it offers the prospect, if it emerges as a compromise made with good will, of a security that cannot be had on any other conditions.” Without such compromise, he added, “the objective historical circumstances in which we live make violent readjustment certain” (1940b, 111). Laski was suggesting that noneconomic factors might, with great effort, peacefully change the economic structure. Otherwise, the change was likely to be violent. The issue was, he argued in 1943, in Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, whether the privileged class in the existing form of

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democracy would abandon greed and embrace equality without compulsion. If so, the present contradictions of capitalist democracy could be surmounted at the very moment when democracy was threatened with destruction. Democracy could thus make the relations of production proportionate to the forces of production. If this could be achieved, he speculated, “a democracy at bay would have made its supreme hour of danger its supreme hour of opportunity as well” (1943a, 161). In peacetime, he warned, the private interest would be likely to become more compelling than the common interest, and differences would be more incapable of compromise. The weakness of this doctrine of “revolution by consent” was ruthlessly exposed in a widely publicized, and unsuccessful libel action that Laski took out against several newspapers. He had been accused of advocating violent revolution during the 1945 general election campaign. Seizing on the ambiguity of the doctrine, Sir Patrick Hastings suggested for the defense that Laski was threatening the Conservative Party that unless it pledged not to repeal the socialist measures there would be revolution. Laski tried to explain that he was in fact warning of the revolutionary consequences, which he himself opposed, of repealing those measures. He hoped that the vested interests of capitalism would consent to the socialist transition in the knowledge that the alternative would be far worse; but he complained justifiably that Hastings was carefully selecting passages from his writings, which, when taken out of context, portrayed analysis as exhortation (Verbatim Report 1947, esp. 75–93 and 138–47). Laski withdrew his wider action after the collapse of his case against one of the newspapers; but Hastings later admitted (1949, 55–71) that he had taken advantage of Laski’s ambiguity. He conceded, moreover, that Laski had used the term “revolution” to signify social change that might be brought about by peaceful means, thus averting the danger of revolution by force. Nevertheless, the trial had revealed the frailty, in face of the vested interests, of the strategy of revolution by consent. Capitalism would, furthermore, not only prove to be far more durable than Laski had imagined, but also variously retain or restore its relationship in the West with liberal democratic institutions and procedures. What rested on firmer ground, however, was his theory that democracy could not be fully developed within a capitalist society. This was something that he continued to stress for the rest of his life. Whilst he praised the achievements of the post-War Labour government, he realized that his ideal of a planned democracy still faced (1950, 22–3 and 88–90) the problems of an economy dominated by the private sector, and (1948d, 49–50) a citizenry indoctrinated by the values of property. A democratic government is, he stressed, “always walking upon a razor’s edge” (1950, 89).

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Democracy would, indeed, continue to operate within boundaries regulated by the condition of capitalism. Nevertheless, as discussed in chapter 3, Laski had presented a strong theory that capitalism and democracy were, ultimately, incompatible with one another. He reasoned powerfully that capitalism would be unable to accommodate a sustainable system of equably responsive government.

CHAPTER 3

The Limits of Capitalist Democracy

A

s Laski reflected (1948c) toward the end of his life, he had sought tirelessly throughout his career for an answer to the problems of democracy and freedom in modern society. Indeed this purpose, which was crucial to his pluralist political philosophy, survived his development of a broadly Marxist position (see 1943b, 27–8 and 33). He always maintained that, as capitalism required responsive government on the part of the state to be compromised, substantive equality of condition would be necessary if democracy and freedom were to be allowed to flourish. What changed, however, was his assessment of the limitations that were placed upon politics. He came to see that people whose interests were entrenched in the capitalist system would vigorously contest the rights that were essential to the development of a socialist–pluralist democracy. Furthermore, as I discuss in chapters 6 and 7, he began to see little prospect of a successful challenge to the inequities of the international order until an offensive had begun upon the role of the nominally sovereign state in stunting the growth of democracy. By building on the foundations of his early associationalism, he thus produced an innovative analysis of the problems of democracy in the twentieth century. The present chapter is concerned with Laski’s views of the problems of democracy within the boundaries of states. By proceeding thus the way will be prepared for the later discussion of the development of his thought on international democracy. The analysis of Laski’s democratic ideas in this chapter differs sharply from that of Deane, who challenged Laski’s theory that capitalist economic power prevailed over liberal democratic politics. A universal suffrage had, Deane argued, enabled groups other than capitalists “to use the ideas and the

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techniques of democracy to further their own ends” (1955, 181). What for him was significant was that, since the Second World War, capitalists had remained “loyal to the democratic process and to the liberal principles of constitutional change even when their own interests are adversely affected” (1955, 182). As was discussed earlier in this book, Deane divided Laski’s thought into sharply defined phases. But only by identifying the threads of continuity in Laski’s work can one appreciate his claim that capitalism could respect democratic rights only so long as those rights did not encroach upon the vested interests of the existing order. By taking the approach that he did, Deane could not appreciate the way in which Laski’s theory of the ultimate incompatibility of capitalism and democracy was actually based on a critical reassessment of his earlier theories. That this important aspect of Laski’s thought should need to be spelled out is a reflection of his own failure to make sufficiently clear to his readers that they should refer to his earlier writings, especially A Grammar of Politics, to grasp fully the main points of his later theories. Moreover, as was mentioned in chapter 1, in order to appreciate those points it is sometimes almost imperative to look beyond his major works to some of his relatively minor publications. But, when they are thus clarified, his theories can be seen to be of significance and lasting value for scholars concerned with the problems of attempting to consolidate democracy. The Problem of Economic Power Even in his pluralist, associationalist phase Laski had reasoned that political power was “the handmaid of economic power” (1919, 38). In the belief that universal suffrage was an important but insufficient step forward, he argued that the business of government is “so largely industrial in nature as inevitably to be profoundly affected by the views and purposes of those who hold the keys of economic power” (1919, 38). Whilst the holders of economic power did not necessarily act malignantly it was only natural that they equated their own views with the social good. The point, he concluded, was that the state could not fulfill its theoretical function of securing this good. Laski summarized these views in a letter he wrote Holmes in 1917. The state, Laski insisted, was “just a great public service corporation and no more entitled (though its power enables it to receive) any more loyalty than a church or labor-union. Everything depends upon the way in which it fulfills its function” (Howe ed. 1953, 75). Although privileged and unprivileged members of society sought different results from this function the right of the unprivileged to see their ends advanced was, according to him (Howe ed.

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1953, 76), much less likely to be fulfilled. These points are of great significance, indicating as they do the motive of his pluralist thought. For him, organizations that served the unprivileged had a greater claim than the centralized state upon their loyalty. This meant that a pluralist state was needed in which allegiance would follow service. When in the early 1920s he began to moderate his pluralism and envisage a greater domestic role for the state, Laski’s perspective on state power changed accordingly. The effective source of the actions of a large modern state is, he argued in A Grammar, the minority whose decisions the community must by law obey. As he saw it the business of this minority, as trustees and governors of society, was “to glean the needs of a society and to translate those needs into terms of effective statutes” (1925a, 26). The problem was to find the social and institutional arrangements through which the requirements of democracy might be found. “Democratic government is,” he argued, “less a matter for eulogy than for exploration” (1925a, 17). As we saw in chapter 2, he sought to devise a scheme through which political and economic power would be widely and substantially accountable. Faced with the escalating economic and political crisis both in Britain and on the world stage, in the 1930s Laski’s optimistic approach to democratic change waned. He came to believe that the scope of liberal democracy was confined within limits that expanded or contracted in response to the requirements of the vested interests of capitalism. Whilst he saw the business of the leader in a democracy as “the definition of the ultimate values to which a society must move . . .” his interpretation of the problem was that “no one can raise an essential issue in a society like our own without touching a vested interest; and in no previous society have vested interests been so well organised for their self-protection” (1933j, 457–8). The only way out of this dilemma, he was now convinced, would be to create “a society where men have an equal interest in the result obtained.” That would be “the only true democracy; for it is the only one where men would have no interest in the destruction of freedom” (1933j, 457). The stark point was thus that for democracy to fulfill its purpose, capitalism would have to be confronted rather than reformed. It was from this perspective that Laski discussed the problems of the reformist strategy in his book Parliamentary Government in England in 1938. The economic and social system of capitalism was, he argued, “made by the owners of the instruments of production in the interest of their property; and the safeguarding of their conception of their rights is inherent in all the rules by which it moves” (1938b, 43). Although that system had been required to extend the franchise to the masses, effective authority was still largely guided

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by the holders of property. Those who own, he elaborated, “decide what shall be produced, and their claim to rent and interest and profit is, as it is satisfied, the chief thing that determines the way in which we live” (1938b, 43). As he saw it, the maintenance of this effective authority meant that the franchise secured only a very undeveloped form of democracy. To achieve a fuller democracy it would be necessary to build an egalitarian society, in which citizens would have effective influence and control over the political authorities In Laski’s view a fundamental problem was that, whilst being “the expression of a politically democratic government,” the British constitution was not “the expression of a democratic society” (1938b, 38). He drew on the theory of his democratic socialist contemporary Tawney (1961 [1921]) that, in the capitalist social order, the market provides for an acquisitive society. It was, Laski argued, “true that wealth in Great Britain can purchase for itself access to the highest social place.” “But,” he went on, “it is also true that, save for a favoured few, any serious approach to equality of opportunity does not exist.” “Our society is,” he elaborated, “overwhelmingly what Mr. Tawney has called an acquisitive society, and its main governmental apparatus is in the hands of those who have been themselves successful in acquisition” (1938b, 38). Those who were thus successful determined the way in which the state used its power. “It is they,” he continued, “who examine the needs of our society and decide to which of those needs, and in what degree, response shall be made” (1938b, 40). In his analysis of this issue of class dominance of government and public administration, Laski identified trends that would many years later be highlighted by Miliband. In an influential book Miliband would argue (1969, esp. ch. 2), that the personnel of the higher levels of bureaucracies, which wield immense power over politicians at central and subcentral levels, are, like businessmen, usually from the middle and upper classes. Although he would acknowledge in one of his later works (1994, 16–17) that these bureaucrats do not form a united, cohesive class in economic, social, political, or cultural terms, he was convinced that the desire to preserve the existing order unites them. Laski had argued similarly that, notwithstanding the constitutional authority of democratically elected parties, the crucial point was that “all the pivotal positions in the judiciary, the civil service, the defence forces, the police, are occupied by members of the governing class.” The rules and habits of these dominant institutions did not disturb the social order. “Here, as elsewhere,” he went on, “right and wrong, wisdom and unwisdom in public action, are established in terms of the effect they have upon the existing social order” (1938b, 23–4).

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The important positions in law, the civil service, the armed forces, the Church, British embassies within the Empire, the House of Lords, the professions, and public bodies such as the British Broadcasting Corporation had, according to Laski, largely excluded working-class representation. The barriers to such positions were not related to natural differences of ability but, rather, they reimposed “traditional differentials upon successive generations.” For him, the consequences were plain to see: “Bad housing, weak health, defective nutrition, out-of-date school buildings, excessively large classes, uncertified teachers, all these represent denials of opportunity to the workers’ children” (1938b, 40). Democracy thus, in his view, required each citizen to enjoy the conditions and resources that gave them the power to affect the course of the decision-making authorities. Only thus could the type of control be exercised that would bring the state to serve its function of responding equitably to the interests of all. The problem was, Laski argued in his introduction to the 1938 edition of A Grammar, that capitalism would “suppress democracy rather than forego the privileges which accrue to ownership under the system of class-relations it involves” (1938a, xvi). He cited the Trade Union Law Amendment Act of 1927 as an example with which to illustrate the problem that governmental intervention had been exercised, whenever necessary, on behalf of the vested interests. He claimed, moreover, that it remained a grave question whether a Labour government would be able successfully to introduce socialist legislation when its opponents would “mobilise against any such effort the powers of the Crown, the House of Lords, and the investing classes” (1938a, xvi). To indicate his belief that this problem of capitalist democracy was an international one, rather than specific to Britain, Laski argued that, whilst the details were different, parallel positions existed in France and even Scandinavia where socialist governments were in office. It was, he stressed, important that none of the Scandinavian governments had “ventured to introduce socialist measures” (1938a, xvi). He argued, furthermore, that the same problem was becoming apparent in the United States. Recognizing that the New Deal was by no means a socialist strategy, he argued that even it was seen by big business to be excessively radical. For him, this problem explained “the use of the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional so much of President Roosevelt’s legislation” (1938a, xv). Taking this legislation as a whole, one could see that the general attitude of the courts was that capitalist society should not be seriously disrupted by political democracy. This attitude was, he stressed, evident even though President Roosevelt had “not attempted to undermine these habits, but to make such concessions to mass well-being as will, in his judgment, preserve the stability of capitalist society”

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(1938a, xvi). For Laski this illustrated clearly that, in a capitalist society, democracy could only flourish within the boundaries set by the requirements of the socioeconomic system. This meant that, as a system of responsive rule, capitalist democracy was seriously flawed. In order to draw attention to the reasons for this problem in the 1940s Laski once again employed the notion of acquisitiveness. The maintenance of capitalism, he argued in Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, required “an acquisitive society dominated by supply and demand in terms of profitmaking; the purposes of the state-power must be harnessed to the need of those who own the instruments of production to make profit.” Production and distribution could only be conducted democratically “so far as we do not thereby injure the central requirement of capitalism that it is worth while for capitalists to go on producing in terms of their ability to make profit” (1943a, 172). He believed that attempts to overcome such restrictions upon democracy would be particularly difficult in the United States, where the dominant values were most firmly entrenched. From this perspective he acknowledged in his book The American Democracy of 1948, on which he had been working for almost a decade (see 1948b, ix), that since independence political democracy in the form of majority rule through representative institutions had been deeply embedded in the American tradition. But stressing that its strength should not be overestimated, he described this system of political democracy as “essentially a democracy of the middle class.” Such a democracy, which never challenged the existing socioeconomic order, assumed but did not announce “the authority of wealth.” Throughout its history political democracy had been careful “not to permit its informing idea to jeopardise the claims that men of property invariably put forward as the boundaries beyond which democracy may not pass” (1948b, 17). As the great corporations came to dominate U.S. capitalism in the late nineteenth century, he went on, the American forms of democracy “obscured, but did not conceal, the fact that they were being based on an economic foundation which was growingly oligarchical in character” (1948b, 19). In his view (1948b, 166), the entire American culture, based as it was on the faith that any hardworking individual would be rewarded with prosperity, stood in the way of the development of democracy. Whilst being in no doubt that the business community believed in democratic government, he stressed nevertheless that most importantly, “they believe in it on their own terms. And their own terms assume that democracy will not work in such a way as to deny the main principles of the business man’s philosophy of life” (1948b, 261). The problems of capitalist democracy were, in Laski’s view, thus evident throughout the different forms assumed by the system in Europe and the

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United States. As discussed later in this chapter, this led him in some of his most important works of the 1930s to discuss the incompatibility of property rights and democratic government. But first, in order to illustrate the strength of his analysis, it will be useful to clarify the way in which his own interpretation of democracy encapsulates the core tenets of that concept. Democracy as Responsive Rule In his encyclopedia entry “Democracy” of 1931 Laski expressed in concise and clear terms the egalitarian nature of his democratic thought. The notion of equality pointed the way to the essence of the democratic idea—an idea that he summarized as “the effort of men to affirm their own essence and to remove all barriers to that affirmation” (1931c, 76). If certain differentials determined the opportunity to exercise authority, the self-realization of those people who were not thus qualified would be hindered. “To give these differentials the protection of the legal order” was tantamount to preventing “the realization of the wishes and interests of the mass of men.” Moreover, because political equality alone did not “permit the full affirmation of the common man’s essence,” democracy needed to “spread to other spheres” (1931c, 77). As he saw it, the division of a people into rich and poor precluded the attainment by the state of a common interest. Laski was adamant that the most important differentials were those of an economic nature. It would thus be necessary, if the diffusion of political power were to be effective, to diffuse economic power. “Economic equality is then,” he argued, “urged as the clue upon which the reality of democracy depends” (1931c, 77). Democracy could be developed to the extent that political equality was made effective by the removal of socioeconomic barriers to the channels of influence. Was Laski attributing to democracy tenets that were, in fact, irrelevant? Thinkers of the Schumpeterian tradition, who interpret democracy in empirical terms to describe polities wherein rulers are chosen through competitive elections, would say that this was indeed the case (see Duncan and Lukes 1963). Schumpeter himself (1994 [1942]) did not believe that the issues of equality and inequality were of relevance at all. In his famous descriptive interpretation he depicted the democratic method as “that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (1994, 269). He did not believe that democracy held any teleological qualities. For him (1994, 267–73), moreover, democracy did not require that there be any control over the elected representatives between elections. In his

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view, consent in a democracy consisted of nothing more than the act of voting in an election and accepting the result. A Schumpeterian democracy need not, therefore, involve more than very restricted opportunities for citizens to withhold their consent. This can be illustrated with reference to Albert Weale’s argument: “Consent is either a form of promise when somebody else has suggested an agreement, or it is a promise not to undertake some future course of action” (1978, 69). Schumpeter’s theory embodies the second, passive form. Laski, on the other hand, took a very different view. As he made clear in A Grammar, he could not accept a theory that held consent to be nothing more than “an inert acceptance of orders accepted without scrutiny” (1925a, 22). The “vast abyss” that lay between citizens and rulers in modern societies was, he argued, “filled by the devices that power and its varied mechanisms bring into being.” He elaborated as follows: We are told that public opinion wills this and desires the other. But we have no satisfying channels either for the garnering of public opinion or for placing before it the materials upon which it may build an edifice of demand which represents its wants. Consent may in practice mean any of a score of things from blank ignorance through dumb inertia to deliberate coercion. (1925a, 241–2) A satisfactory form of consent, he believed (1925a, ch. 7), could only be achieved by a form of self-government in which authority would derive its validity from first, the system of interest representation in the state’s decisionmaking process; second, a system of rights (which is discussed later in this chapter); and third, accountability to an adequately educated citizen body. Whilst Schumpeter’s only concern was that the governors should be placed in office through competitive election, Laski sought to refill the “vast abyss” that separated citizens from the levers of power. For Laski, only thus would popular control produce equitably responsive government. These views expressed by Laski on the problems of consent are of great significance for an understanding of his views on the issue of obligation, upon which his work is sadly rather obscure. In both A Grammar (1925a, 144, also see 39) and Liberty in the Modern State (1930a, 76) he argued that the threat of “contingent anarchy” was needed in order to safeguard against abuse by the state power. A passage from each book needs to be cited to shed light on this notion. A government’s acts, he argued in A Grammar, are: built upon their obligation to labour that the citizens of the State may have full opportunity to realise the best in themselves. That is what gives

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a moral support to governmental policy . . . . The power of government is the right of government in the degree to which it is exercised for the end of social life. There is a note of interrogation at the end of every governmental pronouncement. It is for the citizen to decide in what manner the question shall be answered. (1925a, 36) For Laski, the answers given by citizens should be guided by their judgment whether the government was acting within its right—or, in other words, acting in a way that was fulfilling adequately the purpose of the state. In this respect, he claimed, the state “becomes an organisation for enabling the mass of men to realise social good on the largest possible scale” (1925a, 25). Citizens were not obliged to obey the state “because its theoretic purpose is a splendid one,” but, rather, because of their “conviction that it is genuinely seeking to make that purpose valid in events” (1925a, 26–7). This doctrine of “contingent anarchy” becomes clearer if one focuses on the view on power that Laski expressed as follows in Liberty in the Modern State: Power is not conferred upon men for the sake of power, but to enable them to achieve ends which win happiness for each of us. If what they do is a denial of the purpose they serve; if, as we meet their acts, there appears in them an absence of goodwill, a blindness to experience alien from their own, an incapacity imaginatively to meet the wants of others, what alternatives have we save a challenge to power or a sacrifice of the ends of our life? (1930a, 76) Laski made similar claims about the right of disobedience in his essay “The Dangers of Obedience” (1930c, ch. 1, esp. 21–30) and his book An Introduction to Politics (1931d, 32 and 44–5). This was, thus, an issue on which he argued with conviction. A problem with his theory concerns its vulnerability to the response that citizens will not all agree at any one time— if at all—on what a government must do in order to fulfill the state purpose. As William A. Robson suggested (1931) in the early 1930s, Laski did not make clear how it should be decided whether the case to disobey is stronger than that for obedience. “If the good is purely subjective,” argued Robson, “it is difficult to see how one can obtain any judgement beyond a majority decision of unique individual wills based on individual experiences of absolute validity. Yet this is somehow unsatisfying” (1931, 133). Indeed, he acknowledged (1931, 134) Laski’s argument that rebellion was sometimes a positive duty. At around the same time W. Macmahon Ball raised the following question: “If a good law is one that people want, how many people must want it before it becomes good?” (1932, 134). As he suggested (1932,

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135–5), Laski can have meant neither that a law is just because a majority desire it, nor that the belief of one individual that a law is unjust makes it unjust. Laski’s lack of clarity obscured the central themes of contingent obligation and contingent power, which can be detected in his thought. He was aware that the problems of obligation presented a dilemma that only authority could resolve. There are rules, he conceded in A Grammar, “which I ought to obey even if I disapprove: for, obviously, if each man is to follow his every impulse wherever it leads, an organised social life would be impossible.” But the use of force by the state would be legitimate only when this was in the interest of “the common sense of society” (1925a, 33). He argued, moreover, that in extreme cases: “I may decide that I shall disobey the law and accept whatever punishment it inflicts. That is the only way, at least ultimately, in which I can make the unique contribution of my personality to the life of the community” (1925a, 33). In order to clarify Laski’s theory of obligation it is useful to refer to Bhikhu Parekh’s claim (1993a) that most discussions of obligation have failed to distinguish between political obligation, which is owed to one’s fellow citizens, and civil obligation, which is owed to the civil authority. According to Parekh, civil obligation includes both the legal obligation to obey the civil authority and, in its wider form, cooperation with and support for that authority. Laski’s theory can be codified in these terms. He believed that the political obligation to our fellow citizens took precedence over our civil obligation. Political obligation itself required that there be adequate channels and equal resources for political participation. If these democratic conditions were satisfied, citizens could judge whether the state had earned their civil obligation, which would be contingent on the fulfillment by the state of its role of serving the social good. If individuals felt that their political obligation to their fellow citizens required them to withdraw their cooperation, and even disobey the law and take the punishment for so doing, they will have placed their political obligation before their civil obligation. Laski’s theory of obligation thus revolved around the judgment of individuals whether their society was an egalitarian democracy. In his essay “A Plea for Equality” he argued that the democratic principle “offered a plane where the claims of men to a share in the common good could be admitted as equal.” It is, he added, “only where men have an equal interest in the result of the common effort that there is a bond of genuine fellowship between them” (1930c, 211). This meant that states which sought to postpone equality had “always in themselves a festering sore which is bound to break out sooner or later” (1930c, 215). Such states lacked the essential condition of

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stable government, which was, according to him, “a widespread sense of allegiance to the constitution as the protector of the equal rights of men” (1930c, 230). As will be seen later in this chapter, he believed that equal rights were at the heart of democracy. The significance of Laski’s egalitarian theory of consent can be illuminated by once again contrasting his thought with that of Schumpeter. Whilst Laski believed that an egalitarian democracy would be the key to the problem of obligation, Schumpeter was able to argue (1994, 273–83) that his own theory described realistically the democratic method practiced in modern liberal states such as Britain. But, as such, Schumpeter described as democratic precisely those systems that, in Laski’s view, restricted democracy. As Laski put it in 1935, claims that the ideals of democracy had been achieved by Anglo-American civilization drew the inference “that all that remains is to safeguard the clear benefits it confers.” In his view, however, this would remain a meaningless assumption unless its interpretation of democracy was clarified: If all that was meant by democracy was “the special combination of universal suffrage and economic oligarchy that is characteristic of the United States and Great Britain,” then it was now, he insisted, “historically clear that this was no more than the political expression of the liberal phase of capitalism, due to the fact that its power to expand was still increasing” (1935b, 179). As we have seen, he believed that this liberal phase had begun to wane with the limitations upon such expansion. Furthermore, he considered anyway that democracy might involve much more than this political expression. But what needs to be shown is that the ideas he expressed on the concept help reveal the limitations and inadequacies of the capitalist model of democracy. It is useful for this purpose to remember that the ancient Greek concept demokratia, which signifies rule (kratos) by the people (demos), implies political equality (Held 1987, 2). But this immediately raises the question of the relevant interpretation of equality. As R.A. Dahl suggests (1989, 84–8 and 95–6), on its own an idea of intrinsic equality, proclaiming that all people ought to be considered equal, is too vague to have any real significance to a definition of democracy. Moreover, such an idea does not specify who should decide what is good for the citizens who are considered to be equal in some way. A strong theory of democracy needs to rest on the assumption that all the members of the citizenry are equally and adequately qualified to govern themselves. Dahl offers the operative definition of this as a “Strong Principle of Equality” (1989, 97). But, as he acknowledges, this does not specify who is to be considered as a citizen. Hence, he argues that the principle needs to be based on a foundation in addition to that of the idea of intrinsic equality.

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To avoid arbitrariness, the argument continues, democracy needs to exclude as few adult members of society as possible. We might, then, adopt his criterion (1989, 129–30) that all adults except for transients and the mentally defective should be included in the citizenry. On this basis we might, furthermore, agree with his argument that the “Strong Principle of Equality” should be based on the presumption that: “In the absence of a compelling showing to the contrary everyone should be assumed to be the best judge of his or her own good or interests” (1989, 100). To have much substance, however, this principle needs to be effective; each person must be able to express his/her interests with the genuine expectation of an equitable response from the government. In other words, although the principle is a condition of democracy, it is the effectiveness of a system that, ultimately, makes it democratic. To be democratic, procedures need to facilitate such effectiveness. Indeed, as John D. May suggests, democracy, or “responsive rule,” involves “necessary correspondence between acts of government and the wishes with respect to those acts of the persons who are affected” (1978, 1). His definition leaves open the means by which democracy is to be achieved—whether, for example those means are direct or representative—but deems nevertheless that responsive rule involves popular control over governmental acts (1978, 5). This might refer, on the one hand to an ideal-type model, or on the other hand to a condition that, as he puts it, “exists in greater or lesser degree” (1978, 2). It is the second interpretation that is relevant to the analysis of systems of democracy. A polity will be democratic to the degree to which it is conducive to popular control (Beetham 1994; Parry and Moyser 1994; Saward 1994). In Laski’s view, a high degree of democracy would be unattainable in capitalist societies, wherein the rights of citizens would be protected only in so far as they did not impinge seriously upon the vested interests. For him, this represented a fundamental flaw in liberal democratic theory. Indeed, as Parekh has more recently discussed (1993b), the liberal theory holds that government in liberal democracies can respond to citizens in ways that allow each equally to pursue liberal individualist ends. As Laski saw it, government in liberal democracies could not fulfill this expectation. Individual ends, he believed, could only be served equitably in an egalitarian democracy. A liberal response to Laski’s argument might suggest that democracy can be judged by estimating the extent to which a polity’s institutions and processes allow citizens first, the political opportunities to formulate and signify preferences; and second, to have those preferences weighted equally in the conduct of government. As Dahl suggested (1971, 1–9) in the early 1970s, this judgment might be made by first, identifying possible political

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freedoms and rights that are essential for opportunities to contest; and second, identifying the proportion of the populace entitled to participate in such contestation. Public contestation and inclusiveness would constitute two dimensions of liberalization, and a polity that scored highly on both would qualify as a liberal democracy. Dahl himself, however, conceded (1971, 5–6) that the two dimensions were not the only criteria of democracy. Hence, he used the term “polyarchy” (1971, 8) rather than “democracy” to signify a highly inclusive polity, which allowed a high degree of public contestation. Laski would have acknowledged that polyarchy represented the political aspect of democracy. Indeed, although he usually stressed that the development of democracy required substantive economic equality, he at times used the concept in purely political terms. In 1930, for example, at one point in Liberty in the Modern State he described democracy as follows: a frame of government in which, first, men are given the chance of making the government under which they live, in which, also, the laws that government promulgates are binding equally on all. I do not think the average man can be made happy merely by living in a democracy: I do not see how he can avoid a sense of continuous frustration unless he does. For if he does not share in making the government, if he cannot, where his fellows so choose, be himself made one of the rulers of the state, he is excluded from that which secures in him the certainty that his experience counts. (1930a, 37–8) Laski’s point was that, in its purely liberal forms, democracy was necessary but inadequate as a theory of responsive rule. As we have seen, he usually saw such political interpretations as expressing only a truncated form of democracy. When he deviated from this line one can only assume that this was a case of the carelessness with which he sometimes used terms and concepts, thus tending to obscure the central messages of his thought. It is then useful to turn at this point to what is arguably his clearest distinction between democratic society and democratic government, outlined in his contribution in 1946 to a pamphlet entitled What is Democracy. Democratic society was, he argued, “a community in which citizens accept the maximum satisfaction of demand as its supreme purpose” (1946a, 11). This would require the members of that society to realize that no group or class had special privileges, thus enabling the wants of citizens to be weighed without bias. Democratic government, on the other hand, meant that the lawmakers of a community were chosen by their fellow citizens at reasonably frequent elections, and governed according to procedures that prevented arbitrary decision.

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Laski’s view of the limitations of purely political democracy can be seen clearly in his article “Aristocracy Still the Ruling Class in England” of 1930 (1930d). Two years earlier he had (1928c) analyzed historical data to illustrate the hugely disproportionate representation of the aristocracy in the British Cabinet since the early nineteenth century. This, he argued, helped reveal the imperfection of political democracy and absence of equal opportunities in that country. In his article of 1930 the focus of his study was far wider. The traditional aristocracy had accommodated the capitalist class within itself, and was continuing to do so. It was this amalgamated class that had come to dominate the cabinet, the civil service, the Foreign Office and diplomatic services, the judiciary and legal system, industry, and the Bank of England. As a result, he argued, the Labour government that was by then in power would not bring about the fundamental change in economic power needed to move toward “a social, as distinct from a political, democracy” (1930d, 670). Laski believed that the extension of democracy to bring about equitably responsive government would require the adequate protection of rights. But, after advocating a socialist democracy as the means to provide such protection he came, in the 1930s, to argue that this would require the capitalist system to be uprooted. Although this constituted an important shift in his thought, one can in fact detect the roots of the later, more radical position regarding rights by considering the emphasis he had always placed upon economic factors. The Issue of Rights In A Grammar Laski presented a distinctive theory that rights were neither natural and unchanging nor purely legal concepts. For him, rights were reasonable expectations that reflected the level of economic development in a society. Acknowledging that one could determine from a legal theory of rights the character of the state in question, he nevertheless dismissed specifically the ideas of Hobbes and Bentham that rights were merely claims recognized by the law of the state. Crucially, in his view, a legal theory would “not tell us, save by the judgement we express upon some particular State, whether the rights there recognised are the rights which need recognition” (1925a, 91). From this perspective he argued that such legal theories contributed nothing to an adequate political philosophy. Hence, such theories should be replaced by a theory that would safeguard the people affected by the government, and also subject that government to their control. Laski’s attack on legal theories of rights was well grounded. It would indeed be inadequate from a democratic point of view to argue, as had

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Hobbes, that to gain security people should concede to the sovereign power the unlimited rights of the state of nature. Rights would, from a Hobbesian perspective, simply be those activities not proscribed by the sovereign whose only responsibility would be to maintain security (see Hobbes 1968 [1651], esp. chs. 14 and 21). Turning to the other thinker criticized specifically by Laski, Bentham considered (1948 [1823], 224–5) rights to be fictitious entities created when a legislator prohibits actions that are likely to violate the actions of others. Such theories, which present the rights of people merely as their governments’ descriptions of legal facts, were thus unacceptable to Laski. In his view rights were in fact “prior to the state in the sense that, recognised or no, they are that from which its validity derives” (1925a, 91). Nevertheless, Laski rejected theories that rights reflect a natural order that lies “behind the shifting appearance of contemporary society” (1925a, 89–90). The rapid progress of science meant that such an order could not be permanent. He would, moreover, certainly not have accepted what we now know as foundationalist theories of rights. A problem with such theories is that they rely upon indemonstrable theological or metaphysical assumptions (see Mendus 1995, 11–12 and 14). He stressed that the test of any social organization was “not an absolute logic to which is accorded a priori rightness, but the experience by its members of the logic it maintains” (1925a, 41). For him, a strong theory of the rights of citizens would need to be based on claims that existed within an historic environment, and would also need to test the right of the state to set its own boundaries of action. Such a test must, he insisted, “be a purely pragmatic one” (1925a, 41). From this perspective, in his book Political Thought in England, Laski was critical of Locke’s attempt to “discover the eternal principles of political right” (1920d, 61). Locke may be considered as a foundationalist theorist, who argued (1993 [1698], II, ch. 2) that rights reflected a God-given law of nature by which governments and their peoples should eternally be guided. Laski (1920d, 35–6) identified Locke as a natural rights thinker, for whom the rights of nature—life, liberty, and property—would be preserved for each person who surrendered to the state the right to punish others who broke the law of nature. The state was thus guided by the law and rights of nature. Laski believed that such a view was now outdated. In the early twentieth century there was a sense that it was impossible to find a final answer to political questions. “Each age,” he elaborated, “has new materials at its command; and, today, a static philosophy would condemn itself before completion” (1920d, 61). One issue on which Laski and Locke certainly differed radically was that of property rights. Property, for Locke (1993, II, ch. 5) was a fundamental

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right. Nevertheless, whilst being overtly defensive against state power, Lockean natural rights theory serves to underpin capitalist economic power (Stammers 1993, 73–5). Hence such rights would preserve the social and economic inequalities that would be inimical to Laski’s egalitarian interpretation of democracy. Laski stressed in A Grammar (1925a, 130) that the right to property was related to the service the holder performed for the common welfare of society. Laski had argued several years earlier in 1918, in his essay “The Problem of Administrative Areas” (1921a, 76–8) that, if it could secure neither self-determination in life nor the wealth that a democratic civilization should bring, political democracy had no fundamental meaning. The following year, in Authority in the Modern State (1919), he stressed the importance of rights to the achievement of those ends. Expressing his debt to T.H. Green in this respect, he described a right as something the provision of which was deemed essential to the purpose of the state. A right is essential, Laski argued, when its recognition is rendered necessary by the conditions of society at the given time. A right was justified on grounds of neither history nor abstract or absolute ethics. “It is simply insisted,” he stressed, “that if, in a given condition of society, power is so exerted as to refuse the recognition of that right, resistance is bound to be encountered” (1919, 43). In his essay “The Pluralistic State” of 1919 he argued that rights were natural only “in the sense that they do not depend upon the state for their validity.” Where the state denies rights, he went on, it “clearly destroys whatever claim it has upon the loyalty of men” (1921a, 246). Now, the rejection of foundational assumptions is itself problematic in that a rights theory might thus accommodate limitless needs or demands (Mendus 1995, 13–16). Hence, the status of a right is somewhat diminished. But, by precluding the rejection of certain postulates, foundationalist theories set stringent limits upon the scope of democratic politics. This would not do for Laski, who argued that rights revolved around the democratic control of the state. Rights, he claimed in “The Pluralistic State,” were inherent “in the eminent worth of human personality” (1921a, 246). He argued in Authority in the Modern State that rights such as free expression, freedom of association, and education would give citizens the opportunity to hold governments to account and limit political power. Only thus, save by “continual revolution,” he insisted (1919, 48), could the purpose of the state be achieved. But significantly, considering his later doctrine of “contingent anarchy,” he believed not only that the state should respect rights, but also that citizens were actually obliged to hold the state to account. Hence, for him, each member of the state had “the duty of scrutinising its policy”

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(1919, 47). If people ought to protest and disobey when this was demanded by conscience, such an active interest in politics was essential to citizenship. A point that Laski might have made far clearer was that his theory of rights in fact made two different claims: rights were necessary to provide the conditions for democracy to flourish, whilst democracy would be working effectively if it protected and maintained rights. The two claims can be seen to comprise a reciprocal theory: rights were necessary for democracy to work effectively; effective democracy would protect and maintain rights, and those rights would again make democracy work effectively. In this way rights would be the foundations of citizenship. On the assumption that there is “no a priori rightness” about a state’s policy, he argued in “The Pluralistic State” that: “You and I are part of the leverage by which that policy is ultimately enacted. It therefore becomes a moral duty on our part to examine the foundations of state-action” (1921a, 245). Hence, citizens should be allowed to participate in a state wherein functional and territorial power would be distributed. This, he believed, indicated just where rights would become significant: For the duties of citizenship cannot be fulfilled, save under certain conditions; and it is necessary to ensure the attainment of those conditions against the encroachment of authority. I cannot here attempt any sort of detail; but it is obvious enough that freedom of speech, a living wage, an adequate education, a proper amount of leisure, the power to combine for social effort, are all of them integral to citizenship. (1921a, 245–6) For him, the state thus had a duty to pursue social rights, as well as respect traditional rights of noninterference. But a problem was that, when its objectives were challenged, the state could suppress rights. What was needed was a new form of state, which would recognize and promote the plurality of interests in a modern society. Such a state would encourage and facilitate political participation through functional groups. People would thus relate their activity to the world outside. In this way they would come to recognize and defend their rights (1921a, 246–7). As we saw in chapter 2, in the early 1920s Laski began to envisage a greater role for the central authority in a pluralist system. He revised his thought on rights accordingly. In A Grammar he insisted once again that rights were not created by the state but, rather, emerged as the common and basic demands of civilization that the state must recognize in order to fulfill its function. But he now began to pronounce far more strongly his collectivist interpretation of rights, arguing that the equal worth of citizens’ demands for self-fulfillment meant that the utility of a right lay in its equal

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value to each citizen. Citizens shared as a common end the well-being of their society. Hence, whilst each had rights against the state, that state had the right to demand that their actions must not infringe the common end. Citizens did not, he believed, have rights against the public welfare. Laski argued (1925a, 106–30) that the state should promote a wide range of rights, which can be summarized as follows: (i) work for an adequate wage, or provision in unemployment—this right would require state control of industrial power to ensure sufficiency for all before superfluity for some; (ii) reasonable hours of leisure; (iii) representative government in industry, whereby workers would be able to express their views; (iv) education of a standard that would enable citizens to articulate their expressions, make judgments and weigh evidence; (v) political power, which would involve both a universal franchise and a universal right to represent others; (vi) freedom of speech and association; and (vii) justice without discrimination. These social and political rights would, one might suggest, be crucial if Dahl’s Strong Principle of Equality were to be reflected in a high level of popular control of government, whereby rule would respond to every citizen. Without them, however wide the legal opportunities to influence government might be, the economic means to use those opportunities are not, realistically, available to all. This system of rights would, of course, widen considerably the area of state activity. But Laski argued (1925a, 59) that, although the state should have a role in the field of rights, state and society should be distinguished from one another. Whilst the state would enforce common rules, its power would be mitigated by functional and territorial devolution in specific fields; compulsory consultation with representatives of relevant groups prior to policy decisions; and procedures to prevent the invasion of freedom of speech and similar individual rights (1925a, 132–41). This, according to him, corresponded as follows with three aspects of a system of rights: There is . . . the interest of the individual, always, at least ultimately, finally isolated from his fellow men. There is the interest of the various groups in and through which his personality finds channels of expression. There is the interest of the community which is the total result of the whole pressure of social forces. (1925a, 141) Overall A Grammar offered a democratic scheme for the evolution of collectivism, and also for the protection and promotion of rights. This was necessary in order for the very limited capitalist form of democracy to be transcended. As Laski put it in 1928, in his pamphlet The Recovery of Citizenship, in a society characterized by economic inequality “the insistent demand is not

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that which has the greatest claim to satisfaction, but that which has the greatest economic power behind it. It is the will of this demand which shapes the whole fabric of the State” (1928d, 4–5). The unequal society, he argued, made the process of consumption highly individualistic, and made no effort to “supply ascertained demand from the angle of social benefit” (1928d, 5). The problem was that unless consumption came to be organized in ways that released the personality of the individual citizen, its civic aspect would be lost. Without conscious permeation of the spirit of equality, the organization of consumption was, as he saw it, rendered “the mere tool of the profitmaker.” The more the act of consumption was in the power of profit, “the less can our command of the forces of nature result in a well-ordered commonwealth” (1928d, 6). As we have already seen, when Laski dwelt on this problem in the late 1920s he began to doubt seriously whether the state could be transformed by the constitutional process into a collectivist, rights-based institution. Nevertheless, in his book An Introduction to Politics of 1931 he reiterated (1931d, 36–40) the importance, as he saw it, of most of the rights he had discussed in A Grammar. The only one that he omitted was the third—on representative government in industry. This was probably because of the much narrower scope of An Introduction to Politics, in the preface to which he informed (1931d, 11) his readers that some of the views expressed in the book were more fully set out in A Grammar. The system of rights outlined in the two books was, Laski argued, necessary in order that citizens of the state be assured of adequate treatment and equal consideration. Without those rights, the citizen would not be free. What this meant, he elaborated, was that in the absence of those rights “he will find that the limitations upon the expression of his personality hinder fatally the prospect of his self-realisation” (1931d, 41). He thus presented, even more clearly than before, a cogent argument that such rights were necessary if the assumption of equality was to be reflected in democratic government. “Underlying this conception of rights,” he argued, “is the thesis that no citizen is more entitled than any other, merely as a citizen, to response to his demands” (1931d, 41). At this stage Laski was still prepared to acknowledge that a wider conception of justice had begun to transform the system of rights “from moral claims into positive legal obligations” (1931d, 58). But he stressed that neither the process nor its peaceful accomplishment were inevitable. He expressed this view as follows: Men hold fast by their ideas of justice, and it is not often that they abdicate voluntarily from power. Peace seems to be a function of the

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continuity with which concessions are made to effect a correspondence between legal authority and political power. Where that correspondence is unattainable within the frame-work of a constitution, the new order imposes its will by force …. Reason, therefore, suggests a policy of continuous reform; but man is not wholly a rational animal, and we have no assurance that reason will be victorious. (1931d, 59) As was discussed in chapter 2, the 1931 Crisis in Britain increased his fear that reform would not be allowed to proceed peacefully. In the 1930s Laski came to stress that, whilst social rights were essential to the realization of a fuller democracy, a different theory of rights had shaped the dominant norms of capitalist society. The French Revolution of 1789 had, he argued in 1930, abolished “feudal rights and corporate privilege in the name of the individual, thus creating a favourable position for classes whose power derived from property” (1930e, 34). Having also sown the seeds of future socialist aspirations, the Revolution had, in his view, ensured that the division between rich and poor “could only be bridged by an attack on the rights of property” (1930e, 35). As is discussed in the next section, he would be concerned with this problem throughout the decade that followed. Capitalism and Democratic Rights The theory gaining currency among democratic theorists of the twentieth century—that greater educational opportunities would increase interest among citizens in public business—had, Laski stressed in his encyclopedia article “Democracy,” further emphasized the need for equality. According to him, that theory, which focused on equality of economic rather than just political opportunity, argued “that the main result of inequality is so to depress the moral character of those at the basis of the social pyramid as to minimize their power to get attention for their experience.” The theory saw, therefore, “in equality the path to the end democracy seeks to serve” (1931c, 84). Laski perceived a contrast between capitalism and this democratic end—a contrast that would become an underlying theme of his books Democracy in Crisis (1933b), The State in Theory and Practice (1935a), and The Rise of European Liberalism (1936b). Importantly, as he indicated in two of the prefaces (1935a, 9; 1936b, 9), he intended those three volumes to be read as a trilogy. Laski argued in The State in Theory and Practice that political philosophy had generally judged the behavior of states with reference to systems of rights

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that were shaped by both historical conditions and particular prejudices. Exclusions from citizenship, and thus rights, had been justified on the basis of race, creed, party, or insufficient property. The prejudices upon which all such exclusions rested had defended what Laski referred to as the “transient equilibrium of power” (1935a, 77), which each political philosopher wished to make permanent. As Laski suggested, all such systems of rights sought a partial good, rather than the total good. Laski accepted, however, that historical conditions must shape systems of rights. This was so because of the way in which the views of citizens as to what was essential in life reflected such conditions. “Every advance we make in technical progress,” he argued, “only increases our sense of what is due to us by reason of the achievement” (1935a, 79). Slum housing and the denial of educational opportunity, which were not in previous centuries thought of in terms of rights, were now considered to restrict rights. What society deemed essential was thus subject to change, and he insisted (1935a, 80) that systems of rights must be prepared to meet such changes of emphasis. This was because the conditions that a state must secure to enable citizens to fulfill themselves as moral beings were, as Laski put it, “not permanent, but relative to an environment perpetually changing; and the level at which the conditions must be secured is invariably a function of that environment” (1935a, 79). Laski was aware that he had previously underestimated the extent of resistance in capitalist society, during a time of economic contraction, to the recognition of socioeconomic rights. Liberal philosophy, he now argued in The Rise of European Liberalism, developed in association with the enhancement of entrepreneurial power. The liberal purposes were expressed in universal terms whilst they in fact concentrated on the free entrepreneur. He stressed indeed that, “in practical operation,” those purposes were “so much the servant of a single class in the community that it was [the entrepreneur’s] wants which predominated in the making of the liberal state” (1936b, 260). For over four hundred years, Laski argued (1936b, 246), capitalism had used the state power to write its theory of rights into every feature of society, including law, education, religion, and the family. But the present political system in capitalist democracies was, he claimed in Democracy in Crisis, decaying “due to its failure to embody a new spirit different from that which it was devised to contain. That new spirit brings with it its own sense of values, its affirmation of a plane of rights antithetic to the old” (1933b, 61). “What seems to the capitalist a denial of his rights,” he opined, “seems to his challengers an affirmation of their own” (1933b, 207). Laski had arrived at the view that the fundamental problem of trying, in a time of economic contraction, to square capitalism with democracy was the

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following: “The one consistently seeks to maintain inequalities which the other, not less consistently, seeks to abolish” (1933b, 215). In such a period the dominant class would no longer grant concessions to demands made through the channels of political democracy. “It becomes obvious,” he argued, “that the authority of those who possess political power is limited by the will of those who own the instruments of production” (1933b, 215–16). In the time of economic contraction, he claimed in The State in Theory and Practice, “the reality of political democracy is limited by its virtually complete absence from the economic sphere . . .” (1935a, 327). This was of great significance to his anticipation of the problem of relative autonomy. Political democracy, “and the liberal ideology which expressed its inner purposes,” he suggested in The Rise of European Liberalism, “could no more pass beyond the framework within which it was confined than feudal society could pass beyond its own constitutive principle” (1936b, 243). For Laski, such confinement meant that the state was failing to fulfill its purpose of protecting and promoting rights. Arguing in The State in Theory and Practice that the justification of any coercive authority “is in the measure of its effort to satisfy maximum demand,” he stressed that “a theory of intention can never be the basis of an adequate political philosophy.” It was not, he went on, “the purpose announced, but the purpose realised, when this is set over against the reasonable possibilities of realisation, that can alone be the criterion of value in human institutions” (1935a, 19–20). On this basis liberalism, with its emphasis on property rights, was incompatible with anything more than a purely political democracy. Laski’s work helps draw attention to the problem that democracy cannot, in the absence of socioeconomic rights, bring about equitably responsive rule. The corollary of this is that a substantial democracy cannot be developed within a capitalist society. This was a problem that would be set out more clearly in the 1970s by C.B. Macpherson, who as a postgraduate at the LSE in the 1930s had been influenced directly and profoundly by Laski (see Townshend 2000, 6–14). As Macpherson argued (1973, 4–8), even on the assumption of perfect competition the market distributes rewards not according to work or need but, rather, inequitably in proportion to other owned resources, however these might have been acquired. For Macpherson, this meant that liberal democracy could not fulfill one of its two main justifying claims: that the individual utilities of each person could be maximized. The claim failed, he added, on the further ground that capitalist market economies move toward “oligopoly, monopoly, and managed prices and production” (1973, 8). Laski’s work is significant in this respect. He indicated that, in order to sustain this unequal distribution of utilities in times of economic decline,

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capitalism had to suppress rights that encroached too far upon the vested interests of the socioeconomic system. As reforms would be contingent upon the condition of the economy, a substantial democracy would require capitalism to be eradicated. Indeed, as Macpherson would suggest, “welfare state transfers from owners to non-owners cannot offset the original and continuing transfer in the other direction . . . . [I]f welfare transfers were so large as to eat up profits there would be no incentive to capitalist enterprise, and so no capitalist enterprise” (1973: 12). For him this meant that liberalism could not, moreover, fulfill the second of its justifying claims: that the individual powers of each person could be maximized. By their nature, he explained, liberal societies are capitalist market societies that compel “a continual net transfer of part of the power of some men to others, thus diminishing rather than maximising the equal individual freedom to use and develop one’s natural capacities which is claimed” (1973, 10–11). From a similar perspective Laski saw such a transfer in terms of the restriction of rights as a means of enhancing the powers of the dominant class. Rights would be the necessary conditions for citizens to be able to hold their rulers to account equally, and only by so doing could those citizens fulfill their potential in society. Now, as Macpherson saw it (1977, 1–2), the problem was that liberal democracy attempted to link two incompatible values; these were, first, the “equal effective freedom of all to use and develop their capacities,” and second, the freedom to prosper by following market rules, even if this were at the expense of the weaker. One of the achievements of Macpherson was to identify defects that were inherent in liberal democratic theory (see Morrice 1994). The writings of Laski and Macpherson can, when read in conjunction with one another, shed light on the conditions that must be met in order to achieve the first of the incompatible values (see Lamb and Morrice 2002). By drawing attention to the socioeconomic constraints on the control of political power Laski distinguished between political democracy and the much fuller, egalitarian form of democracy. This egalitarian form could be attained only by the protection and promotion of rights that capitalism was unable to accommodate. Summary As we have seen in this chapter, Laski believed in the 1930s that liberalism had reached the stage at which it could no longer sustain in substantial democratic terms its principles of government. This led him to argue that property was now being defended in Europe by fascism, and in the United States by the more subtle means of the Supreme Court. Focusing upon the first of

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those means he suggested in a wartime pamphlet of 1940 (1940f ) that fascism threatened to overthrow all the political and social rights for which ordinary people in the West had secured recognition over the course of a century. As a consequence, he believed that a straight choice was emerging internationally between fascism and socialism. Whilst capitalist democracy would, of course, recover after the war, Laski’s democratic thought illustrated both the limits of political democracy under the constraints of capitalism, and the elasticity of the boundaries within which rights might be allowed to take effect. He set out, moreover, the necessary conditions and rights for the development of a substantial democratic state and a democratic international order. To gain a fuller picture of the rationale of Laski’s democratic thought it is important to mention that, for him, economic equality and substantial democracy were the means to widespread valuable liberty. This was a view that he summarized in 1942 as follows: A democracy is known by the rights that it maintains; and the more equal the opportunity to enjoy those rights the more full and real is the democracy. The aim of democratic government is freedom; but there is no effective freedom in a society if there are wide differences between citizens in their access to the good things in life. By the good things in life I mean economic security, health, leisure, and an education which makes possible the enjoyment of the intellectual heritage of civilization. (1942a, 38) As chapter 4 discusses, the struggle to realize such effective freedom was central to his democratic thought.

CHAPTER 4

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reedom was never far from Laski’s mind when he discussed the problems of capitalist democracy, the modern state, and the problems of global injustice. He believed that, as a consequence of the restrictions on democracy in a capitalist-dominated world, the freedom of ordinary people was diminished and devalued. There cannot, he stressed, “be democratic government without equality; and without democratic government there cannot be freedom” (1930a, 204). As I discuss in this chapter, there are signs at various points in his writings which indicate that Laski might, but for his indecision regarding the concept of freedom, have left a distinctive theory of libertarian socialism as a major contribution to political thought. Because of his failure to set out clearly and consistently his interpretation of “freedom” the promise that Laski’s work displays in this respect was never in fact fulfilled. A major problem was that, as he juggled with socialism and individualism, his writings swung between the positive and negative interpretations that have characterized many modern discourses on freedom or liberty—freedom and liberty being terms that many political thinkers, including Laski, have used interchangeably. In what has become a customary distinction negative conceptions are those that consider freedom to be the absence of constraints upon the actions of groups or individuals. Positive freedoms, according to the distinction, are those that focus on the nature of human actions. If by his/her actions the person has fulfilled his/her potential, that person is considered by the positive interpretation to have achieved self-mastery and hence freedom. The most influential modern version of this

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distinction is that of Isaiah Berlin (1969, ch. 3), who famously in the 1950s and 1960s criticized the positive conception for its possible totalitarian implications. As is discussed later in this chapter, it was such totalitarian implications that tempted Laski to abandon his positive conception for a negative one at the beginning of the 1930s. This was a move that would, however, prove to be extremely damaging to his reputation as a political thinker. His lack of clarity with regard to the concept of freedom/liberty came to overshadow the end for which much of his political thinking sought the means. He endeavored to press the case for the most widespread enjoyment of individual liberty, or self-flourishing, in so far as this was compatible with the substantive equality of human beings. An understanding of this crucial point will allow us to appreciate more fully his proposals in the 1940s—which I discuss in chapter 7—for international action to enable freedom to be realized on a global scale. In A Grammar of Politics (1925a, ch. 4) Laski discussed freedom in positive terms as a condition to be promoted by the state. But he soon came to believe that the existing state would always manipulate the positive interpretation to secure the benefits of political authority for the dominant economic interests (Palazzolo 1979, 203–11; Smith 1990, 115–16). Claiming in a new preface of 1930 that he had mistakenly assumed that “liberty could most usefully be regarded as more than a negative thing,” he argued that, as he saw it, “the old view of it as an absence of restraint can alone safeguard the personality of the citizen” (1938a, 8). Although he presented this negative conception in his three editions of Liberty in the Modern State of 1930, 1937, and 1948, he stressed (1938a, 4–8) in the prefaces to A Grammar of 1930, 1934, and 1938 that its text was unrevised. During the Second World War, moreover, he reverted (1943a, ch. 8; 1943c, esp. 111–16) to the positive conception, associating freedom with democratic state planning. Laski might have expressed his idea of freedom far more clearly had he steered clear of the positive/negative dichotomy. Indeed, whilst he never accepted the positive theory that freedom could be achieved by submitting to an authoritative direction, he always, notwithstanding his disclaimers of 1930, saw freedom as more than merely the absence of restraint. Like Gerald MacCallum, who argued many years later that freedom is “always of something (an agent or agents), from something, to do, not do, become, or not become something” (MacCallum 1972, 176), Laski (1933k) saw liberty in triadic terms. Had he managed to set out this view clearly throughout his work he might have clarified a crucial point. This was that the freedom with

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which he was primarily concerned was the freedom of individuals in society to fulfill their natural capacities as social beings. As discussed in this chapter, he held constantly to the belief that, for such freedom to be widespread, it would be necessary to pursue the social good. His thought on freedom is thus consistent with his theory that the limitations placed by capitalism upon democracy prevented ordinary people from realizing in union their respective individual capabilities. Pluralism and Freedom The crucial points of Laski’s theory of freedom began to emerge in his early pluralist writings. He argued in Authority in the Modern State that a requirement of freedom was the division of political power “upon the basis of the functions it is to perform.” He claimed, moreover, that freedom alone enabled “the individuality of men to become manifest” (1919, 90). Although freedom was thus a condition that required a reduction of central governmental power, and would facilitate individualism, he criticized the conception of freedom as the absence of restraint. He recognized, however, the strength with which that conception might be presented, claiming (1919, 54) in a footnote (without elaboration) that the best defense had been offered by J.R. Seeley at the end of the nineteenth century. Seeley interpreted liberty “in ordinary parlance” as “permission to do what you like” (1911 [1896], 119). Government was thus, he argued, “the principle by which the individual will is in certain cases crushed, sacrificed to the public good,” whilst liberty was “the spirit by, and the principle according to, which government is resisted” (1911, 101). Whilst government and misgovernment both abridge liberty, he claimed, the former does so “in a wholesome manner, while the other does not” (1911, 119). Laski argued in response to Seeley that it seemed almost certain to his own generation “that the insistence upon absence of restraint is in no sense adequate” and that a “liberty to enslave one’s self becomes immediately selfcontradictory” (1919, 54). He stressed, moreover, that it was the social relevance of an act that determined whether it was a free one, and that this could only be ascertained by considering the consequences of that act. But, for him, John Stuart Mill’s distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding actions was of little value as a means to discern the social relevance of an act. What was of relevance, he stressed, suggesting that T.H. Green’s positive conception was more valuable than negative conceptions, was “the power of adding something to the quality of common life” (1919, 55). This, however, he qualified by upholding Lord Acton’s claim that liberty required everybody

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to be protected against the state authority in doing what they believed it was their duty to do. Those who made “a fetish of centralisation” in pursuit of an ideal of efficiency did not, Laski argued, realize “that the essence of free government is the democratization of responsibility” (1919, 90–1). Laski’s early combination of negative and positive aspects of freedom can seem rather ambiguous (Vincent 1987, 198). Hence, his emphasis upon democracy is crucial to an understanding of his association of freedom with self-realization. He argued in 1920 that governmental neglect of social conditions in the nineteenth century had shattered Adam Smith’s assumptions that opportunities for self-realization and the social good required only minimal restraints upon the pursuit of wealth. In modern large-scale civilizations, Laski advised, “collective plans and common effort” were required. Hence, the search for freedom must now begin upon the basis that self-realization was achievable by a person no less in working for the common good than “in the limited satisfaction of his narrow desire for material advancement.” “Our liberty,” he went on “means the consistent expression of our personality in media where we find people like-minded with ourselves in their conception of social life” (1920d, 238). His comments the previous year indicate his belief that, to achieve self-realization in pursuit of the common good, individuals would have to judge independently how this good would be reached. Self-realization would, thus, require a democratic state to protect from constraints the efforts of individuals to pursue their interpretations of common good. Laski had thus begun to formulate a distinctive theory of freedom that emphasized three main points. Freedom was of the person, from restraints that would hinder the attempt to pursue self-realization in conjunction with the common good. This triadic theory began, however, to become rather confused in the 1920s when he employed the terminology of positive liberty more directly. Laski’s Early Positive Conception As we have already seen, although Laski continued in A Grammar to set out the case for the devolution of power to regions and functional groups, he now advocated a greater decision-making role for the state on issues that directly affected society as a whole. This would replace the existing system where, in the interests of property, state sovereignty masked the restriction of the rights that would enable ordinary people to reach self-realization and thus freedom. How then, one might wonder, did his ideas differ from the theories of positive liberty expressed by the idealist thinkers Green and

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Bernard Bosanquet in the late nineteenth century? A brief review of the central ideas of those nineteenth-century theories will help clarify the difference. Green argued (1941 [1882], 122–4) that morality in a society required the recognition, expression, and observance among citizens of the common interest as advanced by the state. This would, he believed, secure “a corresponding freedom of action for the attainment of well being . . .” (1941, 124–5). Whilst legislation protecting workers and tenants restricted freedom of contract, this was not, in his view, inconsistent with freedom itself, as “freedom” actually meant “a positive power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying, and that, too, something that we do or enjoy in common with others” (1888, 370–1). True freedom, for him, meant “the maximum of power for all members of human society alike to make the best of themselves,” and the state alone could provide the complex of institutions with which to secure “the liberation of the powers of all men equally for contribution to a common good” (1888, 372). At the end of the century Bosanquet presented an interpretation of positive liberty that was far more authoritarian than that of Green. Adapting Rousseau’s theory of the indivisible general will, Bosanquet argued (1923 [1899], 108–15) that even direct political participation would result only in the decision of the aggregate of interests, which would always be an incomplete and imperfect embodiment of the real will. But, he insisted, even in modern nation-states “the complex of social institutions is . . . very much more complete than the explicit ideas which at any given instant move any individual mind in volition” (1923, 115). As liberty is the condition of being one’s own self, he thus reasoned, “we can speak, without a contradiction, of being forced to be free” (1923, 116–17). Individuals could, he elaborated, “acquiesce, as rational beings, in a law and order which on the whole makes for the possibility of asserting our true or universal selves, at the very moment when this law and order is constraining our particular private wills in a way which we resent, or even condemn” (1923, 119). Such theories were unacceptable to Laski. Although, as we shall see in a moment, the influence of Green continued in some respects to influence his thought, the idealist faith in the central state was incompatible with Laski’s fundamental distrust of the sovereign power. Whilst he claimed in A Grammar that liberty was “a positive thing” which “does not merely mean absence of restraint,” (1925a, 142) he did not see in the state an ultimate power entitled to determine the way in which citizens should act. The abstract monism of Green and Bosanquet did not, he had argued in 1921, “dissect the state in terms either of the functions it performs or of the way in which its task is in practice achieved.” “The adherents of the sovereign state

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were,” he added, “too occupied with the splendour of what the state was trying to be to attempt the more mundane task of measuring its achievement” (1921b, 87). If he was thus critical of idealism in general, he was particularly opposed to Bosanquet, whose essential point could, Laski argued in a paper of 1928, be expressed in the following syllogism: We ought to obey that which expresses the best of ourselves. That which expresses the best of ourselves is the state. Therefore, we ought to obey the state. (1928e, 48) Laski could not accept this. He insisted that the basis of obedience should be the construction of a common good, the attainment of which depends “upon whether the policy of the state increases or decreases the realm of conflicting desires; and this is known only by actual scrutiny of the event” (1928e, 50). From this perspective in A Grammar Laski countered Bosanquet’s theory that all state action is, in fact, the exercise of the real will of society. “If,” he argued, “this means that social life is ultimately the product of a single and rational mind organising its activities in terms of a logical process, it is contrary to every fact we encounter in daily experience” (1925a, 34). The general will would actually involve “the paralysis of will” (1925a, 30–1). As he elaborated: If the citizen is not to find the source of his judgements in the contact between the outer world and himself, in the experience, that is, which is the one unique thing that separates him from the rest of the herd, he ceases to have meaning in any creative sense . . . . His true self . . . is the self that is isolated from his fellows, and contributes the fruit of isolated meditation to the common good which, collectively, they seek to bring into being. (1925a, 31) Laski’s positive conception of liberty can thus be seen in terms of his efforts to construct a democratic socialist theory that would respect the autonomy of individuals. Laski argued that, although they may converge to a common purpose, the wills of individual members of society are “separate in everything save the substance of the thing willed” (1925a, 32). There is, he elaborated, “an amazing welter of wills which press upon each other. What, in fact, we call the State is simply a source of ultimate reference which makes a decision upon grounds that it deems adequate” (1925a, 34). Acknowledging that the state did not necessarily make a conscious effort to uphold particular interests in society, he claimed (1925a, 161–2) that, nevertheless, the state in the existing order

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actually served the interests of the privileged. The great inequalities of wealth controlled and weighted the intellectual environment and education system, controlled the engines of government to the detriment of the less fortunate, and thus made freedom impossible. People with great wealth, he stressed, “command the services of others to the performance of functions built upon a private will not necessarily relevant to the social welfare” (1925a, 161). Now, according to Deane, Laski’s attempt to present a positive theory of freedom was incongruous for two reasons. He argued first that Laski’s idea that freedom consists of opportunities for self-realization “is basically inadequate because he never tells his reader what he believes to be the nature of the self that is to be realized” (1955, 107). Second, he argued that Laski’s theory “is meaningless unless we are told what things are worth while doing, or unless it is agreed that each man has the right to do whatever he believes is good” (1955, 108). Laski’s use of positive terminology is, indeed, problematic when set against the terms of the positive/negative dichotomy. However, it is incorrect to suggest that he never expressed a conception of the self. Arguing that liberty was “not merely obedience to a rule,” Laski expressed his view as follows: “My self is too distinct from other selves to accept a given order as good unless I feel that my will is embodied in its substance” (1925a, 143). The citizen, he had claimed earlier in the same book, “is what he is not merely by reason of the contacts with the world that he shares with others, but, above all, because those contacts are reached through a channel which he alone can know” (1925a, 31). By taking into consideration his more general, democratic philosophy one can see that Laski was seeking to express his idea that, living naturally in societies, individuals would achieve freedom as self-realization by working collectively to achieve the societal conditions in which each may realize his or her potential. However, what both Laski and Deane were unable to see was that collectivist theories of freedom as self-realization need not fit neatly into an entirely autonomous positive category. In Laski’s case this is a particularly surprising oversight, not least because his conception of freedom illustrates clearly the limitations of the negative/positive dichotomy. For him, the state should provide channels to individual self-realization, which would be wide enough for individuals to determine their own paths and destinations. Echoes of Green’s positive libertarianism can be detected in A Grammar, where Laski described liberty as “the eager maintenance of that atmosphere in which men have the opportunity to be their best selves.” This had the following consequences: Where restraint becomes an invasion of liberty is where the given prohibition acts so as to destroy that harmony of impulses which comes when

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a man knows that he is doing something it is worth while to do. Restraint is felt as an evil when it frustrates the life of spiritual enrichment. What each of us desires in life is room for our personal initiative in the things that add to our moral stature. What is destructive of our freedom is a system of prohibitions which limits the initiative there implied. (1925a, 142–3) Arguing that all conduct is social, in that it affects other members of society, he still could not accept Mill’s attempt to define the limits of state interference. Liberty involved restraints upon the separate freedoms of some to destroy the freedoms of others. Freedoms were “avenues of choice through which I may, as I deem fit, construct for myself my own course of conduct.” In order to enjoy a “general liberty” one must possess those freedoms that “in their sum, will constitute the path through which my best self is capable of attainment” (1925a, 144). He suggested in his introduction to Mill’s Autobiography that, whilst the concern of Mill was that citizens should be allowed to make the best of themselves, emphasis should now be placed more firmly on “the degree to which the preservation of individuality depends upon the positive character of social control” (1924a, xviii). Laski thus, like Green, differentiated between particular instances of freedom and the general condition of freedom, which revolved around selfrealization. Laski believed, however, that rather than involve the sacrifice of lower desires, this general freedom represented the enjoyment of the societal conditions in which individuals could realize their best selves qua individuals. Liberty, he suggested, “consists in nothing so much as the encouragement of the will based on the instructed conscience of humble men.” This, he went on, requires citizens to have active minds, and be given both “the habit of thought” and “the avenues through which thought can act” (1925a, 143–4). In his view the most efficient way to achieve this would be collectively, with restraints on actions that impede the essential requisites of modern society. In consistency with his earlier work he believed that these requisites should be determined democratically. “It is,” he argued, “essential to freedom that the prohibitions issued should be built upon the wills of those whom they affect.” One must enjoy and be conscious of avenues through which the holders of power might be held to account. “If I have the sense that the orders issued are beyond my scrutiny or criticism, I shall be, in a vital sense, unfree” (1925a, 143). Laski, like the social liberal thinker L.T. Hobhouse, thus interpreted positive liberty as a process whereby state intervention could actually remove impediments to, and increase opportunities for, freedom. But whilst

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Hobhouse (1911, chs. 8 and 9) had faith in the capacity of the existing state, and hovered on the boundary between liberalism and modern social democracy, Laski took a far more critical approach. From his decisively egalitarian perspective he argued in his pamphlet Socialism and Freedom of 1925 that the response of the existing system to demands served purchasing power rather than human need. Hence, in his view: “To speak . . . of the present order as one built upon freedom is to regard the interest of the few who can achieve it as coincident with the general well-being of society” (1925d, 8). He compared this unfavorably with socialist arguments regarding freedom. One such argument was that the purpose of society was “to enable each man to be himself at his best.” Another was that freedom was “the system of conditions which make that purpose effectively possible.” Socialists also stressed that those conditions were “impossible in the presence of special privilege, whether political, or religious, or economic” (1925d, 8). At this point in Laski’s thought the issue of rights becomes significant. He insisted in A Grammar that liberty is “a product of rights” (1925a, 142), and that no government should be allowed to invade rights. But he claimed that government would always do so “unless its organisation prevents it from being weighted in some special interest” (1925a, 146). Government would thus need to focus upon three aspects of liberty: private, political, and economic liberty. Laski defined private liberty as “that aspect of which the substance is mainly personal to a man’s self ” (1925a, 146). Examples of denials of this aspect are, he suggested, situations where there is a penalty on any form of religious faith, and situations in which a poor citizen is unable to secure adequate legal protection in the courts of justice. In the case of political liberty, he argued, there must be the right to act and speak politically, the benefit of which was dependent upon two conditions. These were, first, education of an adequate standard, and second, “the provision of an honest and straightforward supply of news.” “If the facts are deliberately perverted,” he stressed, “our judgements will be unrelated to the truth” (1925a, 147). Turning to economic liberty, he argued that this involves security and selffulfillment in the earning of one’s living. As he suggested: I must, that is, be free from the constant fear of unemployment and insufficiency which, perhaps, more than any other inadequacies, sap the whole strength of my personality . . . . I must be able to make my personality flow through my effort as a producer of services, and find in that effort the capacity of enrichment . . . . Nor is this all. I must be more than the recipient of orders which I must obey unthinkingly because my labour is only a commodity bought and sold in the market. (1925a, 148)

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This would require a system of industrial democracy; industry would be “subject to the system of rights which obtain for men as citizens,” having “laws made by cooperation and not by compulsion” (1925a, 148). Otherwise, citizens would continue to work not on their own initiative, but at the behest of others and in fear of starvation. In a lecture at the LSE, Laski referred to democratic accountability as another aspect of liberty, thus making four in all. His notes for the lecture provide a useful summary of his thought on this issue. Although he denied that liberty was the absence of restraint, he stressed that it was neither obedience to a rule nor the persecution of the self-regarding sphere. Liberty, he argued, involved (a) calling the government to account; (b) personal liberty, such as in religion; (c) political liberty, which required education and an honest supply of news; and (d) economic liberty, which depended on security. Liberty thus required equality—the absence of privilege (LC Amsterdam, 24.4). This amounted to a theory that freedom required equal rights, without which neither special privilege nor state bias could be ended. But the problem according to Laski (1925a, 149–52) was that capitalism required the extent of rights and freedom to be subject to the vicissitudes of the economy. Equality, he argued (1925a, 154–7), required adequate opportunities to be available to all. This did not mean identity of original chance, which he believed to be impossible where there were widely varying family environments (and he did not desire the disappearance of the family). Rather, education and training was needed, which could create opportunities for all to realize their potential and special capacities. A further requirement would, however, be that the resulting opportunities must be for the benefit of society in general. Equality is, he argued, largely a problem of proportions, in that the urgent needs of one person were no less urgent than those of another. Those needs were, moreover, entitled to equal satisfaction. “Once urgency is satisfied,” he went on, “superfluity becomes a problem of so fixing the return to service that each man can perform his function with the maximum return to society as a whole” (1925a, 158). To convey his belief that political equality was insufficient to solve this problem, he reiterated a point that, as we saw in chapter 3, he had made some years earlier. This was that equality is “never real unless it is accompanied by virtual economic equality; political power, otherwise, is bound to be the handmaid of economic power” (1925a, 162). In the late 1920s Laski grew increasingly less confident that the authorities could be subjected to fully effective democratic governance without a root and branch overhaul of capitalism. His belief in the need to introduce fundamental economic change before the state could promote widespread and substantial freedom led him, at the end of the 1920s, to abandon the

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positive conception. As we have already seen, by then he had begun to perceive that the power of the vested interests would be defended with far greater vehemence than he had earlier envisaged. His recognition of the susceptibility of the positive conception to authoritarian manipulation led him to his extremely problematic adoption of the negative conception of freedom. Laski’s Adoption of Negative Liberty By the late 1920s, due largely to his reflections upon the rise of fascism in Italy and the aftermath of the General Strike in Britain, Laski had begun to sway toward the Marxist class analysis of society, which he would embrace in the 1930s. During this period the fascist manipulation of the notion of freedom produced an example of positive terminology that was wholly incompatible with his own ideas. This was largely the work of the fascist philosopher Gentile, who in 1928 described as follows the relationship between freedom and the state: “Freedom can exist only within the State, and the State means authority. But the State is not an entity hovering in the air above the heads of its citizens. It is one with the personality of the citizen.” There was, he stated baldly, “the need of the Party, and all the instruments of propaganda and education which Fascism uses to make the thought and will of the Duce the thought and will of the masses” (1928, 302–3). The impact of fascism upon Laski’s ideas can be detected in his correspondence with Justice Holmes of the U.S. Supreme Court in the late 1920s. In November 1928 he reported to Holmes an interview he had conducted with “a young Italian exile—a professor who had published a protest at being compelled to laud the ‘corporate state’ of Mussolini.” The professor was, he went on, “first dismissed; then nearly beaten to death in his own house by a gang of Fascist ruffians; and escaped by night over the Swiss frontier leaving everything he possessed to be confiscated” (Howe ed. 1953, 1114). “Certainly,” Laski argued, “his experience makes you feel that the simplicity of 19th century liberty has much to commend it” (Howe ed. 1953, 1115). In August the following year, discussing his progress in writing Liberty in the Modern State, he conceded to Holmes that he had found himself “defending the good oldfashioned thesis that I really may not know what is best for me, but that if I am not allowed the chance to find out, there will be no ‘I’ left at all to make decisions.” He was, he went on, taking great pleasure in “attacking all bureaucrats and moral reformers on the ground . . . that the supreme blasphemy is the endeavour of the creedmonger with a principle to enforce to make man in his own image” (Howe ed. 1953, 1174). Later that month he suggested to Holmes: “The whole atmosphere of the book is a plea for liberty

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in terms of scepticism i.e. we never know enough to suppress” (Howe ed. 1953, 1178–9). In Liberty in the Modern State Laski attacked (1930a, 21–31) the idealist positive theory of liberty for portraying individuals as parts of a larger whole, rather than as autonomous individuals. Having, as we saw earlier, always opposed this dominant variant of the positive tradition, he now repeated his view that the idealist theory implied a paralysis of the will. It also, he added, implied “a denial of that uniqueness of individuality, that sense that each of us is ultimately different from his fellows, that is the ultimate fact of human experience” (1930a, 24–5). The important element of continuity is, moreover, evident in that his new attack on idealism repeated (1930a, 25) his earlier point that the true selves of individuals are those that make collective contributions to the common good each on the basis of isolated meditation. Each would thus be sharing contacts with others through channels peculiar to the individual. That Laski had never, in fact, been entirely at ease with the notion of positive liberty can be discerned from a letter he wrote Holmes whilst in the process of writing A Grammar in the early 1920s. Liberty, he commented, “seems to me an atmosphere which restrains the ruler and encourages the initiative of the subject. It clearly means the absence of certain inhibitions; but equally I think mere absence of them does not make liberty” (Howe ed. 1953, 592). But it was not until 1933, in a minor article, that he formulated this idea into a triadic theory of freedom, which clarified his thought. The “affirmation by an individual or group of his own essence” was, he argued in the article, a permanent character of liberty that “seeks in the first place a certain harmonious balance of personality; it requires on the negative side the absence of restraint upon the exercise of that affirmation; and it demands on the positive the organization of opportunities for the exercise of continuous initiative” (1933k, 444). The positive side was, thus, left open, requiring the absence of restraint upon the exercise of initiative. The channels for such initiative would need to vary as societal conditions changed. “To one age,” Laski argued, “the demand for liberty may express itself in an insistence upon religious toleration; to another political enfranchisement may be its essential expression.” But in any age liberty would be “inherent in a social process” and “unintelligible apart from it.” Liberty, he added, “must always be conceived, if its philosophy is to be an adequate one, as related to law” (1933k, 444). Laski would have avoided much confusion had he presented his ideas in such a triadic format in Liberty in the Modern State. But in his opening sentence of that book he claimed instead that what he meant by “liberty” was “the absence of restraint upon the existence of those social conditions which,

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in modern civilization, are the necessary guarantees of happiness.” Liberty thus implied “power to expand, the choice by the individual of his own way of life without imposed prohibitions from without” (1930a, 11). This, he opined, made liberty “a purely negative condition” (1930a, 13). A second implication was, he stressed, “that if in a state there is a body of men who possess unlimited political power, those over whom they rule can never be free” (1930a, 12). Laski’s attempt to construct such a thesis of negative liberty, whilst retaining some of the key themes of his positive conception, has been challenged by W.H. Greenleaf. According to him, Laski’s change in the 1930 preface to A Grammar was in effect “a withdrawal of whatever collectivist emphasis there was” in that book; and Liberty in the Modern State was “an attempt to achieve some stability amid the vacillation” (1981, 586). In his view, Laski tried to do this “through the covert reintroduction of the positive definition.” But it was, he went on, “significant that this is associated with a stress on the need continually to be on guard against undue encroachments by the public power” (1981, 586). Greenleaf did not elaborate upon his claim that Laski was reintroducing the positive definition. But his claim is corroborated by Laski’s stipulation of an end upon which restraints should not encroach. Nevertheless, the indeterminate nature of this end meant that, in consistency with A Grammar, his idea of freedom was not unambiguously positive. As was mentioned earlier, he might have avoided this confusion had he abandoned the positive/negative dichotomy altogether in favor of the triadic theory he would publish three years later. The problems of Liberty in the Modern State were also seized upon by Deane. For him, Laski’s introductory sentence “obviously does not embody the traditional view of liberty as the absence of restraint upon the actions of the individual; in essence it is the same as Laski’s earlier view that freedom is the system of conditions enabling the individual to attain self-realization by satisfying his demands” (1955, 109). He contrasted this with Laski’s use of the term “liberty” throughout the rest of the book in the traditional negative sense. Deane, who did not attempt to account for this change, might have made more sense of this confusing development had he stepped clear of the negative–positive scale. He could thence have observed the way in which Laski’s attempt to present his triadic theory became tangled in the negative terms of Liberty in the Modern State. But the responsibility for the confused state of Laski’s thought on liberty at this point in his career rests, ultimately, with his own inability to clarify his ideas. As a result of this problem the force of Laski’s case for a wider distribution of freedom was lost. Setting out this case he argued: “Our business is to

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secure such a balance between the liberty we need and the authority that is essential as to leave the average man with the clear sense that he has elbow room for the continuous expression of his personality” (1930a, 13). His message would have been far clearer had he continued to emphasize first, that he was concerned with the widespread attainment of freedom as selfrealization; second, that this rested on a view of human nature that conceived of individuals who, living naturally in communities, needed to cooperate with one another; and third, that the inevitable restraints would be distributed more equitably in a democracy based on economic, social, and political rights. He might have emphasized more clearly the inevitability in any society for freedom to give way to constraints. By removing the restraints that the existing economic order placed on the potential of the many, the result would be a fairer distribution of valuable freedom. It was, indeed, from this perspective that he argued, “those who know the normal life of the poor, its haunting sense of impending disaster, its fitful search for beauty which perpetually eludes, will realise well enough that, without economic security, liberty is not worth having” (1930a, 14). By thus stipulating that valuable freedom was dependent upon economic security, Laski drew a critical response 14 years later from the right-wing libertarian F.A. Hayek. Like Laski, Hayek had developed a severely critical analysis of the institutions of liberal democracy. But whilst Laski insisted that a socialist state should promote the rights that would enhance and broaden freedom, Hayek argued that even Keynesian intervention was a threat to individual responsibility (Hoover 1999). Suggesting that there was now a fatal fashion “among intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of liberty” (1962 [1944], 99), Hayek claimed that such a line had been employed by Hitler to “induce the German people to sacrifice their liberty” (1962, 98). For Hayek, political freedom was meaningless without economic freedom. He stressed however that by “economic freedom” he meant something “almost opposite” to the phrase as used by the planners. For him: The economic freedom which is the prerequisite of any other freedom cannot be the freedom from economic care which the socialists promise us and which can be obtained only by relieving the individual at the same time of the necessity and of the power of choice; it must be the freedom of our economic activity which, with the right of choice, inevitably also carries the risk and the responsibility of that risk. (1962, 75) He conceded, however, that some degree of security was necessary in order to alleviate the severe privation that might arise from this form of economic

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liberty; and this constituted awareness that some concessions to security would be essential. But he stressed (1962, 99) that this must not be such as to obstruct competition. What this boils down to is that the crucial difference between Hayek and Laski in this respect was that Laski believed it to be right for such restraints to interrupt the workings of the market. From this perspective Laski claimed that, although security was not itself liberty, liberty could not be effective without security. There may for example, he elaborated, be absence of restraint in the economic sphere in that a person can choose to enter any vocation. “Yet,” he went on, if that person “is deprived of security in employment he becomes the prey of a mental and physical servitude incompatible with the very essence of liberty” (1930a, 13–14). A person who is free might not be in a position to realize the purposes of freedom. “The more equality there is in a State,” he argued, “the more use, in general, we can make of our freedom” (1930a, 17). But the surrender to restraint that had inevitably to made in society was not, he stressed, “for the sake of the society regarded as something other than its members, but exactly and precisely for men and women whose totality is conveniently summarized in a collective and abstract noun” (1930a, 21). Laski was adamant that the restraints which states had necessarily to impose in society could be sought in conjunction with the struggle for ordinary citizens to take control of their own lives. As he put it in his pamphlet The Limitations of the Expert of 1931: Neither goodwill in the expert nor efficiency in the performance of his function ever compensates in a state for failure to elicit the interest of the plain man in what is being done . . . . Every failure in consultation, moreover, separates the mind of the governors from those who are governed; this is the most fertile source of misunderstanding in the state. (1931e, 12–13) In the 1930s Laski stressed the importance of defending democracy against the dictators whose control of the state coincided, during the international slump, with the aims of the vested economic interests of capitalism. In this environment the freedom of ordinary citizens in Germany had been suppressed in the name of a supposedly greater ideal. “The State,” he argued in 1934, “is made an object of worship and sacrifice; and upon its altar are systematically immolated all the decent instincts of civilized mankind” (1934b, 537). Under the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini, Laski claimed, in the introduction to the second edition of Liberty in the Modern State in 1937, the

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effective change had been in “the ability of the ordinary citizen to oppose his will to the orders of the government. He has ceased to be a free citizen. Whatever his thoughts, his only right, as the new dispensation becomes effective, is the right to applaud the men who forged his chains” (1937a, 36–7). In The State in Theory in Practice, rejecting once again the idealist view of liberty, he used the example of an imprisoned revolutionist to convey his point. The revolutionist certainly did not feel that by imprisoning him the government gave him his true freedom; rather, the constraints he experienced represented a denial of liberty. “To tell him that he is made free when he is prevented from fulfilling the purpose he regards as the raison d’être of his existence is, I would suggest, to deprive words of all their meaning” (1935a, 59). By the late 1940s, defending his position in an unpublished review article entitled “Acton Redivivus,” Laski invoked the ideas of Lord Acton. It was, he suggested, remarkable that libertarians such as Hayek, who themselves summoned the ideas of Acton to warn of the danger of collectivism and state planning, “failed to cite, much less to comment upon, the view taken by Acton himself of the results of the market economy.” Acton, he went on, warned that legislation was necessary to help the working classes where class power would otherwise be too overwhelmingly stacked against them (LP Hull DLA/45, esp. 3–10). By this time Laski had readopted the notion of positive liberty in a new attempt to express his ideas clearly. In a planned democracy, he had argued during the Second World War, “the idea of freedom is positive; set as it is in the context of the public ownership of the means of production, it seeks freedom for the fullest development of the public estate” (1943a, 356–7). In seeking to organize opportunities whereby the individual purpose and social purpose are harmonized, he suggested, positive freedom “is thus seeking to create the environment in which the emergence of an integrated personality becomes possible for the mass of citizens” (1943a, 358). The emphasis on equality in Laski’s negative conception, as the condition that enables citizens to utilize their freedom, is important if the point of his arguments of the 1940s is to be grasped. Deane suggested that Laski’s work of this period comprised “a confused mixture of Marxist and idealist definitions of freedom,” and that this represented freedom as “the determination of one’s actions by some external force, such as the state” (1955, 254). But, as is discussed in the next section, although Laski sometimes carelessly conveyed this impression, such a view would in fact have been contrary to his entire life’s work. Once again, it will be necessary to seek for the significance of his words, rather than take them entirely at face value.

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Liberty and Democratic Planning Looking forward to victory in the War against Hitler and his allies, and to the opportunities for peacetime reconstruction, Laski believed that a planned society would set a new context for freedom (1943a, ch. 8; 1943c; 1944a; 1944b). For liberty to be of real value to ordinary people, certain conditions would be required. Stressing that the pre-War conditions only conferred the power of self-affirmation upon a minority, he argued that the defeat of the enemy was “rather the condition upon which freedom can be won than freedom itself in the sense of a power in the ordinary citizen of self-affirmation” (1944b, 20). Much thus remained constant in his thought on freedom. Why, then, did he revive the positive conception? The stimulus for this change seems to have been the possibility, which had hitherto been frustrated, of building a state that would positively assist the democratic aspirations of its citizens. In 1930 (1930a, esp. 214–28), and increasingly in 1937 (1937a, 11–45), he had considered that the campaign for liberty needed to emphasize the way in which the existing state restricted liberty. But, as we saw in chapter 2, he believed that the War years had brought about the environment in which the vested interests might see that consent to fundamental social change was the only rational option to take. Liberated from the fear of want and insecurity, he argued (1943a, 351), human personalities in the consequent planned democracy would no longer be subordinated to the need to conquer those fears. It was from this new perspective that Laski attempted, in Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, to emphasize the purposive aspect of liberty. As was the case in his short article of the early 1930s, wherein he had expressed his views in triadic terms, he did not believe that freedom involved submission to the supposedly overarching will of any authority. The positive terminology he used thus misrepresented his actual intentions. This is, perhaps, most evident in his essay “Choosing the Planners” of 1943. He was, he argued there, concerned “to assure the supremacy in society of the civic context of human beings, the plane of action where vital significance is attached to the identities which unite and not to the differences which divide them” (1943c, 112). A planned democracy would, he went on, be a state the freedom of which would be positive rather than negative. This emphasis upon the supremacy of the civic context appears, at this point, to confirm Deane’s suspicion that Laski was presenting a positive theory which advocated that individuality be suppressed. However, focusing upon the issue of truth later in the essay he insisted that this was “born of nonconformity.” However inconvenient this might be, he added, “without the nonconformist a planned society would lack the dynamic of freedom and

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its planners would rapidly degenerate into tyrants” (1943c, 125). Raising a startling example with which to illustrate his point, he argued: “No planners ought to be permitted the kind of wholesale power over the mind which has enabled Dr. Goebbels to play his grim part in the betrayal of civilisation” (1943c, 124). For Laski, the political and industrial conditions outlined in A Grammar two decades earlier were still essential if the positive state was to promote freedom. He stressed (1943c, 124) the importance of freedom of expression and the independence of the news media, and was still anxious to emphasize “the immense importance of decentralisation, both territorial and functional” (1943a, 123). A planned society would need to involve a stronger role for the trade unions in industry and government, and the organization of consumer bodies with channels to the government. As he opined: Unless we recognise that decentralisation is the secret of freedom, government becomes ‘they’ instead of ‘we’; and that sense of aloofness is fatal to the fulfilment of personality. Do let us ceaselessly remember that planned democracy is planning for the individual citizen, and not against him. Institutional provision, consciously made, which gives him scope for the exercise of continuous initiative is as urgent in the Socialist society of tomorrow as it is in the capitalist society of today. (1943c, 123–4) If one does not refer to “Choosing the Planners,” then Laski’s intentions in Reflections can quite easily be conceived as an attempt to provide a theory of freedom that would sacrifice individual personality to manipulation by the state. His belief at this time that a planned democracy was being built in the Soviet Union further encourages suspicion. He expressed the view (1943a, ch. 8) that the authoritarian condition of the planned society in the Soviet Union reflected the problems of decades of civil and external war against the enemies of socialism. The resolution of these problems would allow Moscow to lift restrictions on political democracy. Indeed, although troubled by Stalin’s regime, during this period he saw (1944b, 55–6, 155–7, and 170–1) the long-term purpose of Soviet communism as a moral crusade to bring freedom for humanity by enabling citizens to each fulfill their potential in cooperation (also see Karson 1965). Although this was a rather naïve belief, it involved anticipation of the flourishing of people in the Soviet Union, rather than support of their suppression. In a passage picked out by Deane (1955, 256), Laski argued that individuals would have to conform to the general principles of the society’s plan. Alarmingly, he claimed that the freedom of citizens “becomes a function of

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its necessities; the limits of their permissible initiative are set by the logic it implies” (1943a, 337). But, rather than stating that citizens would be told when they would be free, Laski was suggesting that freedom would need to be balanced by the authority required by a democratic society. This can be grasped from a passage that immediately follows the one cited by Deane: Planning, obviously, means priorities; the decision is taken that this thing is more important than that, that the resources of society must be used for it before they are used for its alternative. And once there are priorities, freedom, obviously again, has a context different from that of an unplanned society in which the use of resources is determined by supply and demand in the market. (1943a, 337) What is clear from this passage is that Laski was concerned with the way in which the distribution of freedom in a planned democracy would differ from that of the existing capitalist democracy. It is upon this concern that we must focus in order to grasp the point of his thought on freedom during this period. Laski’s thought developed in this way at a time when the principles of the post-War welfare state were already circulating influentially in Britain. Many socialists and liberals alike saw democratic planning in Britain as the key to a more widespread distribution of valuable freedom than had hitherto been the case (Cole 1943; Bevan 1943; Beveridge 1943). The way in which Laski contributed to this wider campaign is outlined quite clearly in his claim that the freedom of a planned democracy is “marked not by the absence of interference from the State-power but by the creation of opportunities it is right that it should organise” (1943c, 115). This, for him, was positive freedom. He interpreted “absence of interference” as freedom for the few, whilst freedom for the many required the creation of opportunities. Hence, poverty, ignorance, and disease were the enemies of freedom. “Each of these we can conquer,” he added, “if we spend our wealth upon their conquest” (1943c, 115). For him, freedom would be redistributed positively in a planned democracy through the growth of opportunities to the many. This would be at the expense of the scope of action enjoyed in capitalist democracies by the few. In a planned democracy, he stressed in Marxist jargon: “The relations of production have been adjusted proportionately to the forces of production. That adjustment makes it possible to transcend the old class character of the society, and as it is transcended, there emerges a new psychology of consumption” (1943a, 349). He contrasted this with capitalist societies, in which freedom was essentially a negative conception. The point he was

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attempting to make is probably best summarized in his claim that the principle of freedom around which political parties would revolve, in a planned democracy, would be fundamentally different from the corresponding central principle in a capitalist democracy. “In the latter, the idea of freedom is negative; set in the context of the private ownership of the means of production, it must at all vital points save the rights of owners from invasion, since, otherwise, it ceases to be a capitalist democracy” (1943a, 356). If a planned democracy should replace the existing order, however, there arises the problem that social control might introduce uniformity with the effect of stifling personality. Laski recognized this. It would be crucial, he stressed in his pamphlet Will Planning Restrict Freedom, to provide a high standard of education without which citizens would lack the level of social understanding necessary for them to control their own lives. “Education is,” he insisted, “the key without which the door to their fulfilment is certain to remain locked against them” (1944a, 8). A suitably educated citizenry would be able to participate in the decentralized state, which would safeguard the planned society from degeneration into bureaucracy. “The importance of decentralisation as an organic principle of government is,” he elaborated, “that it prevents the impress of uniformity from being imposed upon a world in which variety is a factor essential to the realisation of any scheme of values” (1944a, 7). Crucially participation enabled ordinary people to take part in the civic process, rather than obey unquestionably the authority of the power-hungry leaders. A planned society required as the qualities of its citizens “not habits which must be imposed upon them by compulsion, but impulses they latently possess and await the means of suitable expression” (1944a, 14). These passages from Laski’s pamphlet shed light on a crucial claim in Reflections: “Power in society is destructive of society unless the purpose it fulfils and the terms upon which it is held are matters controlled by citizens who are recognised to have an equal claim for equal needs upon the common stock of well-being” (1943a, 306). As we have already seen, moreover, in Laski’s view individuals should, by so pursuing the social good, be allowed to affirm their true selves without being coerced by an authoritarian force into following a certain path. Democracy would, of course, involve authority, but the point would be to find the optimal arrangement for the equitable distribution of freedom. These were views that he continued to hold throughout the 1940s. Arguing in Faith, Reason and Civilisation that it is “only in an intense caring for one’s fellow men that one attains to genuine possession of oneself, and thereby to freedom” (1944b, 200), he insisted that this required the recognition of a universal humanity. Describing freedom as “the sense of a power in the

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ordinary citizen of self-affirmation” (1944b, 20), he argued that faith for the post-War generation would be generated by “the passionate affirmation of the right of each human being to fulfil his individuality” (1944b, 39). Far from wanting to stifle personality, Laski believed that the social good should be sought in a way that would allow citizens to express their individual aspirations democratically. After the War Laski defended (1946b) staunchly the democratic road to socialism against Communist attempts to infiltrate the Labour Party. But his continued willingness to accept that authoritarianism was a temporarily, necessary evil in the Soviet Union provoked accusations that, wherever necessary, he would sacrifice democracy and freedom for the goal of socialism (Kampelman 1948). What clouded Laski’s position was his naïvety regarding the long-term prospects for freedom in the Soviet Union. His view was that the Bolsheviks, having disposed of the previous authoritarian regime, were engaged in the gradual struggle for democracy and freedom. Although he confused matters further in 1948, by publishing a third edition of Liberty in the Modern State (1948e) with its thesis of negative freedom left intact, his position becomes clearer if one turns to his work of the final months of his life. Of great significance is a lecture that Laski delivered in Manchester only weeks before he died in 1950. He claimed that, in order to “discover the questions we should ask in the hope of transforming Man from a rebel against a harsh and unfriendly universe into a master of its forces, and thus into that self-mastery that is one of the essential conditions of a free society,” it was necessary to seek “a profounder knowledge of men’s relation to nature” (1951, 9). Now, in his influential critique of positive liberty, Berlin would later argue (1969, 133–4) that the notion of self-mastery is conducive to manipulation by people who claim to understand the real selves and lower desires of other individuals. Self-mastery becomes congruous with submission to the instructions of the manipulators. But Laski did not see self-mastery in such terms. For him, only individuals knew their own real selves. But it is clear, he conceded in his final and unfinished manuscript, “that, in the great society, one of the ways of escaping from the torture of an unattained freedom is by a subordination so complete that the selfhood and uniqueness of individual personality are lost” (1952, 83). People would thus not only gain security, but also “think they are free because they have abdicated from the social obligation to achieve individuality” (1952, 83). The human being, who had been born for freedom, had in fact been pushed by the existing civilization “to a point where his search for the freedom that fulfils his nature is at war with the social and economic conditions by which he is compelled

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to subordination, to lose hold of individuality . . . .” Thus feeling dependent, isolated, and fearful, the human being employed a “false mask” to conceal the consequent destruction of integrity. One such mask was “subjection to the false ideals which insist to him that the more he sacrifices of himself the more fully he will be free” (1952, 84). Such a sense of impotence, Laski argued, made possible the authority of rulers like Hitler and Mussolini. In his unfinished manuscript Laski summarized his theory of freedom in a way that combined the defensive and purposive aspects which were always present in his thought. As he stated: To be genuinely free is to cast away the barriers that have stood in the way of the social and economic order which realises individuality in each of us, and does not maintain itself by the repression of that individuality. The malaise of our civilisation lies in the contradiction between the pressure to liberate this individuality and the refusal of so many powerful interests to recognise the validity of this pressure and make way for its release. (1952, 84) This passage encapsulated the themes he had expressed in alternate positive and negative terms throughout his career. Moreover, it offered what is perhaps his most clear and concise statement of the restriction of valuable freedom in capitalist societies. Had he constructed such a statement much earlier in his life his ideas would, perhaps, have had a far greater impact upon modern democratic thought. Summary Notwithstanding the oscillation of his descriptions of freedom, what lay at the heart of Laski’s thought was the idea that individuals would attain their optimum freedom if each were to seek democratically the social good. This would allow them to balance their own self-affirmation with the respect for that of others. But as we have seen, an early problem into which he stumbled in the 1920s, despite the fear of the suppression of individuality that made him a staunch opponent of theories of the general will, concerned his presentation of these ideas in positive terms. This fear led him, indeed, to package his ideas unsatisfactorily as a negative concept at the end of the decade, when his view of the state changed. His readoption of the positive conception in the 1940s was, moreover, an intellectual error rather than a fundamental philosophical change. This uncertainty, and the lack of clarity in which it resulted, proved to be a major weakness of his thought; he would

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have been able to present his ideas far more clearly had he avoided the negative and positive terminology altogether. Laski’s views of the satisfactory balance between freedom and authority, and of the fairer distribution of freedom, meant that his egalitarianism was essential to this aspect of his thought. As a consequence, he insisted that the limited capitalist form of democracy must be transcended in order for ordinary citizens to achieve self-realization, and thus freedom. But, as is discussed in chapter 5, he argued that an obstacle to fundamental socioeconomic change was the notion of state sovereignty. As his thought developed from pluralism to a broadly Marxist position, he became increasingly aware of the hold that the capitalist class maintained on the nominally sovereign state.

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CHAPTER 5

State Sovereignty and Class Power

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eflecting on the thought of his recently deceased colleague at the LSE in 1950, Norman Mackenzie commented (1950, 39) that Laski had attempted throughout his life to solve the problem of who, since government is necessary, is to give orders to whom and on what terms. This was a statement that summarized Laski’s endeavors rather well. Central to Laski’s attempt to solve the problem was his analysis of sovereignty in theory and practice. The problems of power and sovereignty were, for him, closely linked to the entrenchment of the very limited system of democracy in capitalist societies. From his early pluralist perspective Laski viewed sovereignty as a notion that conveyed a false impression of societal unity, thus giving an air of legitimacy to state action favoring particular interests. Although this view survived the changes that characterized his intellectual development, he came to opine in the 1930s that pluralism had failed to provide an adequate definition of the relation between sovereignty and class in capitalist societies. Accepting the basic Marxist theory (Marx and Engels 1968 [1848], 37) that the state acts as an instrument of class dominance, he arrived at the view that the employment of sovereignty theory had become a crucial means of screening the state’s effectiveness in performing this role both within its borders and on the international stage. By thus combining elements of pluralism and Marxism, Laski’s critique of sovereignty not only has a distinctive quality but also continues to be relevant to contemporary discussions of the role and power of the state. His work in this field of enquiry illustrates the value to be gained by defying the customary division that has come to separate political and international theory. Chapters 6 and 7 investigate the way in which Laski’s approach to the sovereignty question formed a crucial feature of his internationalist thought.

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First, though, the present chapter prepares the way for that discussion by examining closely his critique of the use of sovereignty theory to mask class dominance. He believed that with the removal of the veneer of sovereignty, the legitimacy of the modern state in its existing form, with its class-biased role, would be undermined (see Lamb 1997). Pluralism and Sovereignty In his early pluralist phase Laski considered that, in their typification of the state as an all-absorbing entity and ultimate decision-maker, theories of sovereignty conveyed “a sort of mystic monism” (1917, 3) that ignored the rich variety of monistic entities that existed in actual states. Clubs, trade unions, churches, societies, towns, counties, and universities, he elaborated, each possessed group lives and wills. Individuals would sometimes judge that a particular group had greater validity than the state, the will of which they would subordinate to the will of that group (1917, 16). He thus placed the individual, who was linked to a variety of associations, at the center of pluralist theory. Individuals should, he insisted, ceaselessly examine the moral foundations of the state before obeying. How the individual should judge those foundations is indicated clearly by his demand that pluralism is “individualistic only in so far as it asks of man that he should be a social being” (1917, 24). By assuming that individual thought and soul must ultimately be absorbed in the national life, Laski argued, sovereignty theory placed “authority before truth” (1916, 303). This truth, in his view, was that the relations of the different parts of the state were “unified neither in aim nor method.” Consequently, in order to place itself “at the disposal of the social group which, at any given historic moment, happens to dominate the life of the state” (1921a, 28–9), the orthodox theory of sovereignty had to coerce those parts into unity. This meant that the influence of the dominant group invalidated the theory of the sovereign state as a unifying body exercising supreme power. If the power of the state is thus at the behest of interests, the theory of sovereignty as the supreme power of the state itself is, indeed, fundamentally flawed. Sovereignty is, however, a protean word that has a number of political and legal applications (Benn 1967 [1955]). Bearing this in mind one can see that Laski’s critique of sovereignty in terms of power does not necessarily render the word redundant. This becomes evident if one separates the different uses of the word “sovereignty” into two broad concepts: the de facto and de jure. Whilst the de facto concept refers to actual power, de jure sovereignty describes the legal status of the person or persons who hold supreme formal authority (Benn and Peters 1959, 257–60).

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Laski’s critique of the former concept does not invalidate the latter. Indeed, acknowledging (1921a, 17–18) the introduction of the legal sovereignty theory by Bodin in the sixteenth century, and its adaptation by thinkers such as Hobbes and Austin, he conceded that this was unanswerable in its own terms. But he denied that such a theory could “ever offer the basis for a working philosophy of the state. For a legal theory of sovereignty takes its stand upon the beatification of order, and does not enquire—it is not its business to enquire—into the purposes for which order is maintained” (1921a, 29). This is a point on which Laski might be challenged. Law must receive some degree of consent, however tacit or habitual, to exercise authority in a society. Otherwise rulers would have to garner obedience solely by coercive means, and as such they would not be legally sovereign (see Field 1956, 72–80). A legal sovereign, rather than a coercive tyrant, would have to maintain order for purposes (even if these were to be very basic and ostensible) acceptable to the populace under its jurisdiction. Indeed, even a Hobbesian sovereign would have to use its judgment as to how to maintain order for the ends of peace and common defense; otherwise individuals would have no reason to abide by their hypothetical contract to transfer their rights to a sovereign as the means to peace and security (Hobbes 1968 [1651], chs. 13–18). But this in itself brings into focus a fundamental problem of sovereignty theory. “Sovereign” and “accountable” are terms that are incompatible (Maritain 1950, 343–8). If the power in question is the authority generated by a form of contract, the ruler is by definition accountable in some way. Even if one accepts the weakened interpretation of legal sovereignty, conceding that in reality it is contingent on some form of consent, the concept becomes redundant when one begins to examine the nature, extent, and efficacy of the democratic power that guides formal authority. At that point one enters the realm of de facto politics; and a de facto sovereignty could not be democratic in anything more than the thin, Schumpeterian sense, which was discussed in chapter 3 of this book. This is a point that may be illustrated by the classic Austinian theory. For Austin, sovereignty was established by two characteristics: 1. The bulk of the given society are in a habit of obedience or submission to a determinate and common superior: let that common superior be a certain individual person, or a certain body or aggregate of individual persons. 2. That certain individual, or that certain body of individuals, is not in a habit of obedience to a determinate human superior. (1995 [1885], 166)

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But, as Austin seems to have recognized, such a situation could exist on the basis of law only so long as it received some form of consent. The sovereign individual or body may, he suggested, yield occasional submission to “express or tacit commands of other determinate parties” (1995, 166). He stressed, however, that the sovereign does not render habitual obedience to the commands, whether express or tacit, of any “determinate person, or determinate aggregate of persons” (1995, 166). Indeed, the greater the accountability of the state, the weaker the notion of sovereignty becomes. This indicates the extent of the realm of the legal notion of sovereignty. As Laski suggested: “For the lawyer, all that is immediately necessary is a knowledge of the authorities that are legally competent to deal with the problems that arise. For him, then, the idea of sovereignty has a particular and definite meaning” (1921a, 229). But in the analysis of political problems, Laski pointed out, “the starting point of inquiry is the relation between the government of a state and its subjects” (1921a, 229). This meant that the legal theory of sovereignty was unsatisfactory. As was discussed in chapter 3, from his stringently democratic perspective he believed that a working philosophy of the state had to be concerned with not only the office of authority in a society, but also the exercise of power. He was dissatisfied with anything but the most actively expressed consent given through adequate participatory channels. From this normative approach he was able to focus on the weaknesses of theories—and in particular theories of sovereignty—that helped legitimate restrictions on democracy. One might respond to Laski by citing Rousseau’s theory (1993 [1762], 193–5, 200–8, and 261–5) that, with adequate participation, the citizenry as a whole could be sovereign through its embodiment in the state. But such a response would presume either as Rousseau suggested that the majority must be considered as the correct interpreters of the general will, in which case the sovereign body would be accountable to some of its constituent parts, or that unanimity could be reached amongst a populace—something that Laski denied. As was discussed in chapter 4, on the basis of individual autonomy he denounced idealist theories of the general will. In his view any government would represent interests within society, rather than society as a whole; and democracy for him meant the widening of opportunities to influence government and receive an adequate response. As he saw it (1921a, ch. 6), the notion of popular sovereignty obscured this issue of power and influence over government. To grasp this important point of Laski’s thought, it is useful to note the way in which he distinguished his own theory from that of his French contemporary Léon Duguit. Like Laski, Duguit rejected the concept of state

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sovereignty. Although the idea of organic integration was fundamental to his thought, and although he sought on this basis to subordinate interests within the state to the social whole, Duguit argued that the state had to fulfill a social function to achieve legitimacy. The state was thus accountable for its actions, which must be guided by the principles of social solidarity and public service (Laborde 2000a, ch. 5). In 1916 Laski read Duguit’s book Les transformations du droit public, which had been published three years earlier. Laski expressed to Justice Holmes an interest in the book’s critique of sovereignty theory and description of the state as no more than a great public service corporation (Howe ed. 1953, 15 and 39). Laski claimed in the introduction to the English translation, which he and Frida Laski completed in 1919, that Duguit was protesting against a theory that armed the state with the sovereign right to act without question as the guardian of public order. Duguit, he noted, challenged that view, which portrayed the state “as a person, with the significant limitation that the possession of its rights did not involve, save as an act of grace upon its own part, an assumption of proportionate legal responsibility” (1921c, xv). Law, for Duguit, was “simply the sum of those principles within [a moral] code which have won a general legal sanction because they are necessary to the achievement of the social purpose” (1921c, xvii). On this basis, Laski went on (1921c, xvii–xx), Duguit argued that the state was subordinate to law and the social purpose, and that sovereignty was therefore inconsonant with the facts. A problem with Duguit’s theory lay, according to Laski, in its attempt to suppress the idea of subjective law. The idea that there could be unanimity regarding the representation of social need was, for Laski, mistaken. Interpretations of social need would so differ among citizens “as merely to transfer the subjectivity involved from the order issued by the ruling officials to the judgement upon the validity of that order by the subjects who receive it” (1921c, xxvi). This objection is understandable considering Laski’s pluralist outlook at the time—an approach that rejected monism. As Laborde has pointed out (2000b, 545), Laski did not fully grasp that Duguit had a conservative purpose of revising and defending the role of the state. Nevertheless, it seems that the measured critique of Duguit’s work at this point was of great significance to Laski’s intellectual development. Whilst his pluralist outlook would undergo a process of gradual change, Laski’s rejection of the likelihood of societal unanimity continued to bear upon his views on sovereignty. Indeed, in the early 1930s he offered once again (1933l) his objection to Duguit’s theories. He agreed that the subordination of the state to societal direction undermined sovereignty

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theory; but, in his view, Duguit’s vision of social solidarity overlooked the actual divisions of society and thus neglected the likelihood of disagreement between groups. In the 1920s, focusing on societal division, Laski had presented his most forceful and direct critique of sovereignty. He stressed in A Grammar of Politics that it would “be of lasting benefit to political science if the whole concept of sovereignty were surrendered” (1925a, 44–5). This conclusion derived from three weaknesses that, for him, undermined the theory. The first was its assertion without accurate historical analysis that the state is supreme in its own territory, having purposes that are right by the mere announcement of intention. The development of the state over time, he argued, “both explains the character of its present power and, at the last, offers hints as to its possible future” (1925a, 44). The second weakness was the supposition of the legal sovereignty theory that right is “merely the expression of a particular will, without reference to what that will contains” (1925a, 44). Whilst he conceded that the logic of such a definition was unquestionable in legal terms, in his view “the assumptions upon which it is compelled to build make it valueless for political philosophy” (1925a, 44). Third, he questioned the insistence that “there must be in every social order some single centre of ultimate reference, some power that is able to resolve disputes by saying a last word that will be obeyed” (1925a, 44). This, in his view, “is of dubious correctness in fact” (1925a, 44). These three weaknesses meant that the concept of sovereignty was of little real worth. He argued that what was portrayed as sovereignty was, in fact, “power, and what is important in the nature of power is the end it seeks to serve and the way in which it serves that end” (1925a, 45). For Laski, what was often considered as the will of the state was not the will of society but, in fact, the decision of those who were in government. What this meant in practice was, he maintained (1925a, 35–6), that the sources from which the government’s will derived became in effect the will of the state. The sovereign body that was in theory the ultimate decisionmaker was “compelled to will things desired by bodies in law inferior to itself ” (1925a, 51); and the body that made the law was thus less important for politics “than the forces which made that organ act in the particular way” (1925a, 55). Hence, he once again repudiated the Austinian legal school of sovereignty theory. There were, he stressed, dangerous moral consequences of the legal theory: although state action was in reality executed on behalf of bodies inferior in law, legally the sovereign state “may act unwisely, or dishonestly or, in an ethical sense, unjustly” (1925a, 50). Hence, he insisted that, in order to be a moral entity, the state must “be built upon the

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organised acquiescence of its members. But this demands from them the scrutiny of government orders” (1925a, 62). Crucially, for him, theories of state sovereignty served to conceal this problem. At the end of the 1920s Laski published an essay entitled “Law and the State” (1929c), which reiterated his view that sovereignty was merely a disguised form of power. He accepted the historical notion of sovereignty as a quality held at a particular time by particular agents. But in this context, he argued (1929c, 267–9), sovereignty is a purely descriptive term indicating the position of the agents who legally issue orders without responsibility to a higher authority. He was still staunchly dismissive of this formally logical theory of sovereignty. As a term of formal jurisprudence, he insisted, sovereignty is only (and necessarily) justified by its own axioms, and thus inadequate as a philosophy of the state. The problem faced by the juristic philosopher was thus “the difficult one of validating his purely formal analysis of categories for the actual world about us.” “Institutions,” he went on, “justify themselves, not by their position in a logical hierarchy, and the claims that position formally entitles them to make, but by their power to satisfy effective demand” (1929c, 272). What this meant, according to Laski, was that in reality the validation of law was not a matter of its source, but rather its acceptance by the community. As a democrat he thus insisted that the government should be so organized that “a maximum consent to its operations is assured before it embarks upon them” (1929c, 274–5). But he continued to believe that complex modern communities could not be reduced to the unity of a single common good. A single organ could only partially express such common goods as may be agreed upon by the people in question. From this perspective he continued to voice the functionalist leanings of his earlier thought. The decisions of the state, he argued, should “take full account of the interests that will be affected by those decisions. Whether the interest affected is individual, association, or territorial unit, it must be adequately and effectively represented in the making of the sovereign will” (1929c, 280). What makes “Law and the State” particularly significant is its author’s acknowledgment that the essay was not inconsistent with his pluralist theory of the state. His argument was still “rooted in a denial that any association of men in the community is inherently entitled to primacy over any other association” (1929c, 283). But the roots of his shift toward Marxism can be detected in his assumption in the essay that, in societal conditions that block the equal claim to the well-being of citizens, the state becomes an “instrument” of the section of the community that is thereby advantaged. This meant that, in modern capitalist societies, the “unequal distribution of wealth

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inevitably introduces bias into the character of state-action” (1929c, 282). From this time onward he would pronounce more forthrightly that the state’s claim to sovereign preeminence serves as a vital means of maintaining class dominance through the preservation of the existing system of class relations. Marxism and Sovereignty Lecturing in London in 1930 Laski (1930f ) discussed law in unmistakably Marxist terms. Marx had, of course, argued (1968b [1859], 181) that in any epoch the interests of the dominant class in society were served by a legal and political superstructure, which reflected the configuration of economic power. Focusing on what Marx called the superstructure, Laski now began to investigate the way in which the legal system served the interests of the dominant class. Citing a number of examples of British legislation and juridical decision as evidence, Laski reasoned: “The substance of law, broadly speaking, will be determined by the wants and needs of those who dominate the economic system at a given time” (1930f, 5). Stressing that the courts were not consciously biased he argued that they, like the class whose interests they upheld, believed that their decisions were just. While such decisions were based on their own conception of good, this itself reflected the condition of society. The character of state institutions was, he was by now convinced (1930f, 5–7), influenced by the predominant mental climate, which itself reflected the operation of the economic system. His thought had thus begun to echo Marx’s famous proclamation: “The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” (1968b, 181). In his book Introduction to Politics the following year Laski acknowledged that there was, in every state, a legally preeminent sovereign will. But to depict the state in such terms as a purely legal order is, he insisted, simply to describe “the way in which social relationships are geared together in a modern community, without regard either to the way in which the present system has developed, the purposes that it serves, or the value and dangers which attach to it as it functions” (1931d, 17–18). He acknowledged once again (1931d, 22–3) that members of the ruling class might well believe that they were acting reasonably, and that all classes conceived of justice in their own terms; but, he argued, as the state in fact operates broadly in the interests of the dominant class, the legal order is “a mask behind which a dominant economic interest secures the benefit of political authority” (1931d, 21).

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In his work of the 1930s he had, one might suggest, identified a process that Steven Lukes would discuss (1974, 21–2) cogently 40 years later: the mobilization of bias by the unconscious exercise of power through social arrangements. In a lecture entitled Nationalism and the Future of Civilization in 1932, Laski offered a clear and concise depiction of the way in which this delusive notion of sovereignty stands as an obstacle to freedom. By dividing authority, he claimed, the power to call the state to account—which was a power that was incompatible with sovereignty—would compel restraint in the exercise of such authority. That power, he went on, “promotes independence of mind, and it gives that independence opportunity of expression by providing it with the means of organisation” (1932d, 56). This, for him, was essential to freedom. Hence, he argued that when the state presents itself as sovereign, thus portraying itself as the political embodiment of the nation: “Diversity is strangled; individual rights are sacrificed; centralization destroys that eager spirit of local and functional responsibility out of which creativeness in government is born” (1932d, 56). Although Laski thus continued in the early 1930s to explore the problems of state sovereignty, he had yet to set out fully the implications of his adoption of Marxism. Indeed, R.M. MacIver claimed in 1932 that, because of his movement away from theoretical pluralism, Laski’s initial studies of the problem of sovereignty had “never been given the development which his suggestive but incomplete analysis required” (1932, 214). But, however astute MacIver’s analysis might have been at that time, six years later in 1938 the publication of the fourth edition of A Grammar provided a significant development. As was mentioned in chapter 1, Laski claimed (1938a, xii) in his introductory chapter to that edition that he now considered pluralism to have been a stage on the road to his Marxist outlook. The basis of this claim was his belief that three perceptions in his pluralist doctrine had been correct. He presented those perceptions clearly as follows: (1) that a purely legal theory of the state can never form the basis of an adequate philosophy of the state; (2) that the state is, in fact, no more entitled to allegiance than any other association on grounds of ethical right or political wisdom; and (3) that its sovereignty is, at bottom, a concept of power made valid by the use of coercion which, in itself, is morally neutral. Society as a complex whole is pluralistic; the unified power of the state which we call sovereignty, that legal right, as Bodin put it, to give orders to all and to receive orders from none, is made monistic (as in

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the classical legal theory) by the fact that it has behind its will, on all normal occasions, the coercive power to get its will obeyed. (1938a, xi) Importantly, however, he now claimed that a serious weakness of the pluralist doctrine had been its failure to realize sufficiently that the state expressed the extant class relations. Like Nicos Poulantzas many years later, he saw sovereignty as a concept with which the state secured legitimation for this role. It is, indeed, useful at this point to dwell for a moment on Poulantzas’s discussion of the ideological function of sovereignty in capitalist democracies. For him (1973, 188–9 and 276–9; 1978, 28), the apparent exercise of popular sovereignty through elected representatives legitimated the role of the state by expressing unity through state power. Sovereignty thus supposedly represented the “people-nation” as a whole, rather than private interests or socioeconomic groups within the body politic. This, he argued, served first to conceal the divergent class interests; and second to keep the dominated classes in the isolation that not only entrenched their disorganization, but also helped the dominant classes to organize politically. Laski had, idiosyncratically on the basis of his reappraisal of pluralist political philosophy, arrived at a similar view of this class-biased function. The pluralist case did not, he argued, emphasize sufficiently the fact that the state was “bound to claim an indivisible and irresponsible sovereignty because there was no other way in which it could define and control the legal postulates of society.” A system of class relations could be realized by so defining those legal postulates. The preeminence of the sovereign state was thus inevitably claimed in order to serve particular purposes adequately. “If the state ceased to be sovereign, it ceased to be in a position to give effect to those purposes” (1938a, xi–xii). The different approaches by which Laski and Poulantzas arrived at their similar conclusions are plain to see. In his famous debate with Miliband, Poulantzas rejected (1969) attempts to construct Marxist theory upon the basis of assumptions shared by liberals and socialists. Laski’s approach, on the other hand, illustrates the potential to build critically, from a neo-Marxist perspective, on pluralist theories of state power and societal division. The value of Laski’s approach lies in its focus upon the fabrication, by human beings, of the artificial societal structures that enable powerful groups to utilize technological and economic developments. His pluralist tenets highlight the falsity of the system in which states are considered to be sovereign, and thus preeminent; and his adoption of a Marxist perspective allowed him to expose the reasons why this artificial system had developed. This is discussed more fully in the next section; but first, a response should perhaps be made

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to the views of Deane regarding Laski’s composition of a Marxist critique of sovereignty. Deane was correct to suggest that Laski had arrived at the view that “the sovereignty of the state, the target of his early attacks, is essential if the state is to fulfill its function, the maintenance of a given system of class relations” (1955, 153–4). His claim that Laski would now like to see socialists take control of the state was, similarly, correct. But his conclusion from all this, that in Laski’s work of the 1930s “the decrepit sovereign state appears to have made a complete recovery” (1955, 171), misses the point that Laski was trying to convey. Laski was still dismissive of the normative theory that sovereignty was an attribute which justified the actions of its holders. Indeed, he claimed in The State in Theory and Practice of 1935 that, in order to claim the obedience of those over whom it was exercised, a coercive authority would have to satisfy maximum demand. “It is not,” he stressed, “its intention merely to achieve this end that is its title to allegiance” (1935a, 19). The relevant criterion was, rather, the realization wherever possible of that intended purpose. Laski’s belief that the coercive authority of the capitalist state had not satisfied this criterion was illustrated clearly in a lecture he delivered in 1935. It was, he argued, of utmost importance to know “what the state has actually done before we can usefully examine either why it has so acted, or the probable course of its action in the future” (1936f, 122). In this respect political theory had a crucial role to play. This was “to explain causally the differences in the habits displayed from one age to another. It has to explain them as to create a theory of the state which will enable it to predict, from the habit of power at any particular time, what the practice of the state is likely to be” (1936f, 117). On this basis Laski argued that the state could “best be defined as that organ of the community which exercises supreme coercive power” (1936f, 116). Through the use of this power the state had indeed satisfied some demands, or in some cases provided the conditions for the satisfaction of such demands. Nevertheless, he insisted, the state had neither treated demands equally nor differentiated rationally between them on the basis of the service they offered to common welfare. Conceding that he was making “broad generalisations which require refinements to be historically adequate,” he summarized as follows the role that the state had actually played: The rule of state-life has been response to effective demand, i.e., the demand behind which there has been sufficient power to compel satisfaction of want. The Greek city-state satisfied the demands of slave-owners; broadly speaking, it did not need to satisfy the wants of slaves. The feudal

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state emphasised the satisfaction of wants particularly associated with the ownership of land. The capitalist state is devoted to the satisfaction, at least predominantly, of the owners of capital. (1936f, 117) In his interpretation of the historical record Laski clearly did not believe that states had realized the purpose which would justify their coercive authority. This raises the question as to how the state legitimates its class-biased role. As David Beetham has suggested, legitimation is generated through some form and degree of consent, the exercise of power through established legal procedures, and conformity with beliefs shared by the dominant and dominated sections of society (Beetham 1991, 15–37). Laski believed that in capitalist societies the concept of sovereignty was enmeshed with such a process. For him, the status of sovereignty helped the state to claim legitimacy even when resorting to coercion. But his work brings into focus the ways in which sovereignty theory is, in fact, weakened by this enmeshment. As we have seen (also see Laski 1936g), he argued that the state relies strongly on a system of law which functions within the normative framework of society. Linked to this was his attempt to reveal that consent, which enables the state to make and enforce law through established procedures, depends upon the conformity with shared beliefs, which will have been shaped by the norms of the dominant class. As will be discussed in the next section, he believed that the failure to achieve this would mean that the state would need to rely increasingly upon its coercive role. He thus illustrated the way in which the mask of sovereignty slips to reveal the nature of the state in practice. Sovereignty and Capitalist Democracy In the 1930s Laski came to believe that the doctrine of sovereignty, which helped legitimate class dominance, was becoming increasingly transparent. This rested on his historical analysis of the concept of sovereignty itself. To grasp the significance and profundity of that analysis it will be necessary to consider three of his major works of the 1930s (1933b; 1935a; 1936b) as the trilogy that, as was mentioned in chapter 3, he intended them to compose. This will help place his work on sovereignty in the context of his critique of capitalist democracy and wider political philosophy. The first of the three books was Democracy in Crisis (1933b). In that volume Laski discussed the way in which the political systems of liberal democracies had developed during a phase of capitalist expansion. The process leading to universal suffrage had thus occurred in the late nineteenth

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and early twentieth centuries, during which time the capitalist economy could meet the demands for liberal social legislation. But, he argued, since the First World War the capitalist system had suffered setbacks that reduced its capability to meet satisfactorily the demands that were being made by a mass electorate. Capitalist democracy had thus entered a period of severe and perhaps terminal crisis. Writing at a time when Mussolini’s regime was in power in Italy, and Hitler was set to seize power in Germany, Laski expressed his fear that the dominant classes of capitalist societies would resist if their economic dominance was endangered by democratic pressure for concessions they felt unable to grant. As he conceded (1933b, 9), the book painted an extremely pessimistic picture of the future of democracy. From this pessimistic viewpoint Laski questioned the influential nineteenth-century theories that political democracy could secure the needs of the enfranchised masses. Such theories had, in his opinion, failed to see “that each economic regime gives birth to a political order which represents the interests of those who dominate the regime, who possess in it the essential instruments of economic power” (1933b, 50). The assumption that underpinned such theories was that of the absolute validity of a form of political state without reference to the economic character of society. What in fact needed to be acknowledged was, as he put it, “the grim fact that, at the parting of the ways, men in the position of actual sovereignty choose to fight rather than to abdicate” (1933b, 51). In A Grammar of 1925, having described sovereignty as merely a form of power, he now held that such power always belonged to the dominant class in whose interest custom and legislation was made. In the preface to the second book of the trilogy, The State in Theory and Practice, Laski claimed (1935a, 9) that his aim in that volume was to develop further the philosophic implications of Democracy in Crisis. His discussion of the state and sovereignty in the second book is discussed shortly. First, though, we need to turn to the third volume, The Rise of European Liberalism, in the preface to which he noted (1936b, 9) that his intention was to provide a historical background to The State in Theory and Practice. In The Rise of European Liberalism Laski discussed a range of features in the history of liberal philosophy. Liberalism had been opposed to privilege by virtue of birth or creed. Meanwhile, on the positive side, the liberal tradition had stood for representative government, national self-determination, and a contractual state ensuring very limited political intervention. As he suggested, the tradition was born in Europe between the Reformation and the French Revolution. Liberal ideology had, he argued, developed in order to give a rational justification for the institutional practices brought into

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being by the new social relationships that emerged during that period. As he suggested, the new society was based on the right of property ownership. The problem was that the proportion of people whose wealth enabled them to benefit from the breakdown of feudalism was in fact small. Laski’s work in this third book of his trilogy serves to complement a central theme of Marx’s thought. According to Marx, the power of the state in Europe had constituted “the concentrated and organized force of society,” which had been employed “to hasten, as in a hothouse, the process of transformation of the feudal mode of production into the capitalist mode, and to shorten the transition” (1976 [1867], 915–16). Laski’s achievement (1936b, 11–21; also see 1930g, esp. 121–4) was to draw attention to the function of ideology in this process. Liberalism was shaped, he argued, by the needs of the new class of bankers, traders, and manufacturers to attain political dominance. Laski thus placed great emphasis upon what he saw as the underlying economic and industrial developments of liberalism, as well as the changes in society that reflected them. This prompted G.C. Field to argue in a review that Laski concentrated too heavily on the desire of the business classes for wealth. Laski’s “refusal to allow any independent force to influences other than economic,” claimed Field, “weakens his power of analysis and his historical imagination alike” (1936a, 527). But although Laski did place great emphasis upon the economic influences, he by no means disregarded the importance of other influences. Indeed, The Rise of European Liberalism discusses the way in which social, religious, and scientific developments helped pave the way for economic change. What shaped this theme was the approach to Marxism he had begun to adopt toward the end of the 1920s. As we have seen, he gradually developed a perspective from which he saw the economic aspect as the ultimately determining one, which is itself sometimes propelled by other aspects. Importantly, this allowed him to illustrate the way in which religious and political developments helped shape the system of sovereign states, which, in turn, allowed capitalism to develop and prosper under the guise of legitimacy. From this perspective Laski recognized (1936h) that campaigns to make the papacy accountable, such as that of the Conciliar Movement, were perhaps the most influential factors behind the weakening of papal power. In his lectures at the LSE he emphasized the importance of the Conciliar Movement. Writing at the time of the Great Schism over the right to the papacy, the Conciliar thinkers had asked the following questions: “(a) What is the nature of obedience; i.e. why should A obey B? (b) What are the conditions of political obedience; i.e. in what way is the system of rights and

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duties to be organised?” In this way, he argued they “asked the same questions we are asking today” (LLN London, Col Misc 500/1). Laski was, furthermore, well aware of the role of state sovereignty as a means to the securement of peace and order after the breakdown of the unified medieval Christian commonwealth at the end of the Middle Ages. He had discussed this role in some detail in his essay “The Foundations of Sovereignty” (1921a, ch. 1) and his lengthy introduction to the English translation of the classic sixteenth-century essay “Vindiciae contra Tyrannos” (1924b, 1–60). What is crucial here is that state sovereignty is a concept constructed as a principle of social organization (see Biersteker and Weber 1996; Murphy 1996). In The Rise of European Liberalism he discussed the way in which the concept helped legitimate the capitalist system, which would, eventually, be linked uneasily with political democracy. Between the Reformation and the French Revolution, he argued: “Status was replaced by contract as the juridical foundation of society. Uniformity of religious belief gave way to a variety of faiths in which even scepticism found a right of expression. The vague medieval empire of jus divinum and jus naturale gave way to the concrete and irresistible power of national sovereignty” (1936b, 11). Liberalism, according to him, “came as a new ideology to fit the needs of a new world” (1936b, 19). Laski’s analysis of the rise of liberalism helps one appreciate the points he attempted to make in Democracy in Crisis regarding the shortcomings of the modern liberal view of democracy. Modern liberalism did not, he argued, “realise that the political democracy it brought into being was established on the unstated assumption that it would leave untouched the private ownership of the means of production” (1936b, 243). Political democracy, which could not pass beyond the constitutive principle that shaped liberal ideology, was restricted to securing the concessions that capitalist profits allowed. Whilst the early liberals had released individuals from one restrictive social organization, he suggested in his lecture The Decline of Liberalism several years later, only property owners were in the position to take advantage of the new competitive industrial society. What liberals had not foreseen, he went on, was “that the new social order their liberalism had built brought with it new problems as intense as any they had solved” (1940g, 13–14). This was because they had not understood that, “in any society where economic power is possessed by a small part of the population, there cannot be the effective enjoyment of liberty for the many” (1940g, 14–15). Returning to Laski’s trilogy of the 1930s, we have observed that in The Rise of European Liberalism and Democracy in Crisis he stressed the limitations of political democracy in the capitalist state. In the other volume, The State

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in Theory and Practice, he attempted to develop the implications of Democracy in Crisis further. He suggested in the preface to the second book of the trilogy that his purpose was “to discover the nature of the modern state.” The nature of that state would be explained “by an examination of its characteristics as these have been revealed by its history.” The book would thus seek “to outline a theory of the state in more consonance with that history than the classic outlook” (1935a, 9). Democracy in Crisis was essentially a critical investigation into the condition of modern capitalist democracy. The State in Theory in Practice was a quite different study. Laski’s intention in this second volume was to determine both why the state operated in the way that it did, and how class bias was masked in this operation. He argued that although “few institutions have received panegyrics more splendid than the state,” these were rarely panegyrics of actual states. More usually they were “the defence of a system of purposes which the thinker deems good, and conceives as capable of realisation only through the peculiar form of association we call the state” (1935a, 16). Whilst acknowledging that political theory had usually distinguished between government and state—the former having to act within the scope allowed by the state’s purposes—he argued (1935a, 23–6) that this distinction was of little practical significance. This was because it was never in reality the state that acted but, rather, the government using the state’s sovereign power. Arguing that the unity found in society was one of coercion rather than consent, Laski stressed that the essential feature of the state “is not its search for a common welfare, but its power to compel the acceptance of certain class-relationships which make that common welfare peripheral, and not central, to its aim” (1935a, 270). The true end of the state was, he went on, “to maintain the legal principles which secure within its confines the predominance of the owners of the instruments of production; and what of common welfare it ever establishes is always subordinate to that major end” (1935a, 270). Social legislation was thus introduced when necessary in order to legitimate the legal principles whereby the owners of property could continue to dominate society. However, if prosperity waned, so would the social legislation. In a passage of crucial importance to this aspect of his political philosophy, Laski argued that the successful operation of the state by governments depended upon a balance between force and consent. According to him: It is true . . . that when members of the state are fundamentally at one about the purposes embodied in its policy, the coercive aspect recedes into

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the background. It is even true that in a constitutional state which offers the critics of the government a fair chance of replacing it in power at the end of its allotted term, the coercive aspect will not appear predominant either. But at any critical moment in the history of a state the fact that its authority depends upon the power to coerce the opponents of government, to break their wills, to compel them to submission, emerges as the central fact of its nature. (1935a, 26–7) This was a point that drew a critical response from Field, who argued (1936b, 79) that Laski was indecisive over the relation between force and consent in the establishment of sovereignty. Laski, Field suggested, had exaggerated the former by overestimating the exercise of coercive power as a function of the state. But although Laski’s characteristic lack of clarity invited such a complaint, a close reading of the book unearths the much stronger thesis that consent is of equal importance to force as a means of exercising the sovereign power of the state. What Laski aimed to establish was the way in which the balance between force and consent altered in accordance with the degree to which the state could meet the demands of its citizens. He argued that the judgments which people made regarding the ability of the state to meet those demands varied with time and place. As he suggested: Expectations of what is legitimate are always born of experience; and the demands of one society at one period will differ from those of another society at another period. But the implication is the clear one that the exercise of coercive authority in a society is never unconditional. It must act by rules. It must realise those purposes which the citizens who live by its activities deem to be fundamental. (1935a, 17) Importantly, Laski stressed that normally “the basis of state-sovereignty is the contingent power to use the armed forces of the state to compel obedience to its will” (1935a, 29). The notion of contingent power was thus once again central to his political philosophy. As he saw it (1935a, 143), the state needed to use its coercive power when it could not secure legitimacy for its actions. When the state did secure such legitimacy the balance between coercion and consent shifted toward the latter. But the concessions which helped secure that legitimacy were limited by “the postulates involved in the system of property-relations characteristic of the society the state has organised” (1935a, 270). When those postulates came under threat, the ultimate coercive power was brought into play.

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In another review of The State in Theory and Practice Leonard Woolf criticized the dual use by Laski of the term “state.” Woolf accepted Laski’s definition of the state as “a society, or group of human beings, ‘which is integrated by possessing a coercive authority legally supreme over any individual or group which is part of the society.’ ” What he denied was Laski’s definition a few pages later of the state as “a way of organising the collective life of a given society,” and also Laski’s argument that it was legitimate to regard the state “not, indeed, as the society itself in its manifold complexities, but as the aspect of the society in which the totality of life is, at least contingently, embraced” (Woolf 1935, 291). Woolf complained not only that Laski was likely to cause confusion, but also that the second definition of the state as the coercive power—the method, or way of organizing society—risked the personification of the state. The coercive power, or authority, was exercised in the name of the state, and thus Laski seemed to be arguing that the state could act in certain ways, and moreover that it had to be captured by socialists. For Woolf, it was the coercive power or authority rather than the state that socialists needed to capture. Indeed, the state was a society composed of individuals, and could not in fact be “captured.” Woolf thus identified a point on which Laski might have been far clearer. Nevertheless, Laski’s point was an important one. As the title of his book suggests, Laski was distinguishing between the state in theory and in practice. In theory the state, especially the sovereign state, was an all-encompassing association integrated by a neutral coercive authority that articulated and defended a common cause. In practice, however, the modern state was used as a means to serve a purpose—to organize the collective life of a given society in a way that preserved the interests of the strongest economic class. Society was integrated by the common authority to give the impression of unity, even though the state actually mirrored the balance of class forces within the broader society. There needed to be coercive authority that integrated in order to form a state. Once formed the state thus existed as a means of coordinating society for particular purposes. Laski was thus on stronger ground than Woolf realized in presenting the state as a collective entity that is used as a way of organizing the collective life of the society. In chapter 6 the international implications of this dual description of the state is discussed with reference to a public debate in which both Laski and Woolf participated. To summarize the main themes of Laski’s 1930s trilogy, his view was that sovereign power secured legitimation through the acceptance by citizens that the state broadly met their demands. Extensions of the franchise during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had ushered in forms of state that conformed to the established rules and norms of society. Various

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types of express and tacit consent were thus secured from citizens for the system of power; and liberal ideology and sovereignty theory, which had each been shaped in the service of the capitalist rise to ascendancy, had come to play vital roles in the legitimation processes of modern capitalist democracies. Whilst the nominally sovereign state served the interests of the dominant class, liberal ideology propagated the belief that such a state was a necessary feature of any modern society. Laski revisited this ground in the chapter he added to A Grammar in 1938. Fashioned by three centuries of discussion, he claimed, the liberal theory of the state “assumed that in every political society where anarchy was to be avoided there must be a supreme authority which gives orders to all and receives orders from none. The authority was the sovereign power; and it was exercised in the name of the state by the government to whom its operation was entrusted” (1938a, iii). Whilst the justification of sovereign power had been conceived in different ways through history, authority in modern liberal democracies had rested on the argument “that the title of the state to obedience lay in its performance of three functions: (1) it secured order, (2) it provided a technique of peaceful change, and (3) it enabled demand to be satisfied on the widest possible scale” (1938a, iii). But since the end of the First World War, he stressed, great skepticism had developed as to whether all three functions could be fulfilled in a capitalist society. Although it was still universally accepted that state power secured order, what had come to be recognized was that the order maintained by the state “does not provide a technique of peaceful change and does not permit demand to be satisfied on the largest possible scale” (1938a, iii). Whatever were the philosophic purposes attributed to it, Laski argued, the state’s supreme coercive power was in fact used to protect and promote the interests of the dominant economic class. This was done by maintaining the extant system of class relations in society. In his view (1938a, iii–iv), the extent to which the state would have to use coercion for this actual purpose depended upon the economic condition of society, as this condition determined the amount of material concessions that might be given to the dominated mass of society. What had emerged was a global situation in which the state would not be able to perform its second and third functions. The growing economic crisis of the 1930s had convinced him that attempts to reform the state by abolishing its sovereign status would be unacceptable to a class which relied on that state as the protector of its interests. He thus came to argue that only Marxism could provide an adequate explanation of the nature of the state, and thereby solve the problem by replacing the sovereign state with one based on pluralism. In order to limit the power of

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the state “as the pluralist sought to limit its power” it would, he now believed, be necessary to “destroy the class-nature of society; for the state is simply the executive instrument of the class in society which owns the means of production. When a class-society in this sense is destroyed, the need for the state, as a sovereign instrument of coercion, disappears” (1938a, xiii). Now, Laski’s continuing ambition to build a pluralist democracy might seem to be at odds with his advocacy of a planned socialist democracy. But in the lecture on pluralism, which he delivered in Washington in 1939, he conceded that, for a period before the state disappeared, there would have to be a period in which the monistic theory of the state would prevail. This would be necessary to enable the state to work toward the common good whereby all individuals would be in the position to have “an equal interest in the state’s functioning . . . .” This, he went on, would create an environment in which “the conference upon individuals and voluntary bodies of the right to determine their own lives would be a new and much simpler problem” (1939a, 70). “Only after the equal society has been attained,” he insisted, “can the process of pluralism come consistently into view” (1939a, 71). The reason why Laski campaigned so enthusiastically for a planned socialist democracy is thus clear; such a democracy would pave the way for the eventual introduction of the pluralist state. In Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time in the early 1940s he stressed that he had little patience with arguments that present society, and particularly the economic sphere, was over-governed. As he put it: Less government only means more liberty in a society about the foundations of which men are agreed and in which adequate economic security is general; in a society where there is grave divergence of view about those foundations, and where there is the economic insecurity exemplified by mass-unemployment, it means liberty only for those who control the sources of economic power. (1943a, 12) When Laski’s ideas are brought together in this way, his argument cited by Deane, that socialists should take control of the state, can thus be understood more clearly. This was not an acceptance of the principle of state sovereignty; it was, rather, a theory that the state could be employed in the service of an egalitarian goal. This was, indeed, the central theme of Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. Just as each nominally sovereign state presently served particular capitalist interests in an international competition that undermined the potentialities of widespread material benefit, a global system of democratic planning would dispense of sovereignty and instead pursue the

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common good in a spirit of cooperation. The new form of state would not be presented as a sovereign state; it would be an instrument the legitimacy of which would be determined by the extent to which it served a purpose. Summary Although Laski underestimated the ability of capitalism to weather the economic crisis of the 1930s, and to maintain or reintroduce political democracy after the Second World War, his work on sovereignty is of greater durability. As we have seen in this chapter, he explored the way in which the concept was crucial to the protection of vested interests. Moreover, he produced a strong thesis that, if sovereignty theory was to contribute to the legitimation of class-based rule in capitalist democracies, the state would need to be seen as fulfilling the basic functions widely considered to be fundamental to its purpose. Concerned that sovereignty theory served to achieve legitimation by invoking a false picture of societal unity, he attempted to unmask the class dominance of modern states. Although this important element of Laski’s thought fell like others by the wayside in the decade that followed his death, Martin Peretz argued (1966, 100–1) in the 1960s that Laski’s theory of the gap between the state in theory and practice was far from obsolete now that people had begun to question seriously the traditional doctrines of political obligation, and to talk of counter communities. This is an important point. The state has, indeed, had constantly to justify its position of supremacy; and sovereignty has remained as a central tool for this purpose. Today, the state continues to guard jealously its supreme authority from challenges from within and without; in the latter case, indeed, the notion of sovereignty is still central to the principles of international relations. Notwithstanding the continual changes to the regulatory rules of international interaction, the constitutive rules of sovereignty continue to identify states—whether unitary or federal—as ultimately the bearers of the legal condition of constitutional independence (Sorenson 1999). This convergence of the internal and external elements of sovereignty was a point of great concern for Laski. As is discussed in chapter 6, he saw the external element as a factor that prevented the democratic organization of the interdependent world. As he saw it, this role of the nominally sovereign state was essential to the international capitalist system.

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CHAPTER 6

Problems of International Politics: The Inter-War Era

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s a critic of the theory and practice of state sovereignty, Laski was concerned that international relations were contemplated and conducted in wholly unsatisfactory terms. In his view, theories of the sovereign state had little explanatory value in the face of increasing interdependence in world affairs. More than ever before, in the twentieth century political decisions were needed that transcended the formal jurisdiction of states. Moreover, new forms of democratic institutions were required in order to generate such decisions and implement the subsequent policies. He recognized, however, that any move to upset the existing, state-centered political order would face powerful opposition from those who benefited from the existing system. Laski thus drew attention to the problems of democracy in a global setting. If sovereignty served to mask class dominance in internal affairs, it was equally effective as a means of disguising and legitimizing the influence of capitalist interests upon power relations on the international stage. Nominally sovereign states would thus be inappropriate units in any genuine attempt to extend government accountability to people around the globe; but to attempt to undermine those states would be to stir the wrath of the vested interests. In this chapter I examine the way in which his ideas regarding these issues and problems evolved during the period between the World Wars, as he reflected upon events that increasingly undermined the fragile peace. Whilst not being entirely neglected, the importance of this internationalist element of Laski’s thought is by no means reflected in the literature.

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Newman’s book (1993) provides some concise and illuminating discussions of the way in which Laski’s internationalist views developed in their political context. Nevertheless, as a biography it does not (and cannot be expected to) enter into discussion of Laski’s powerful critique of the international implications of sovereignty and capitalist democracy. In an earlier book Zylstra offered a short section (1968, 149–56) that discussed Laski’s changing views on the League of Nations. He noted that the reassessment of the bonds between the state and class interests led Laski to lose faith in the League as an organization capable of eliminating sovereignty in international affairs. In that section Zylstra also briefly identified two important features of Laski’s internationalist thought: the focus on the functions he hoped the League would perform and the idea that the civitas maxima should enjoy primacy in international affairs. In this chapter and the one that follows I discuss the details and significance of these and other features. Although Newman and Zylstra thus recognized that there was an important internationalist element of Laski’s political thought, the tendency more generally to overlook Laski’s work in this field has meant that he is now grossly underestimated as an internationalist thinker. In order to redress this problem it is necessary, as was the case in chapter 2, to trace the development of his ideas in the context of his political and intellectual environment. Guarded Optimism for the League of Nations As the First World War drew to a close in 1918 the shape of the post-War international order was one of the prominent topics of intellectual debate on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain one of the most influential contributions came from Alfred Zimmern, who argued enthusiastically that the Commonwealth might provide the moral, cultural, and economic model. This drew a critical response from Laski who, in a letter posted from his base at Harvard in 1918, suggested to Zimmern that he was confusing necessary institutions for ones with which he was accustomed. Furthermore, Laski argued, Zimmern was ignoring the economic element that was so crucial to political life (see Rich 1995, 88). As was discussed in chapters 2 and 3, by this time Laski was beginning to emphasize in his own work the importance of economic power in domestic politics. His response to Zimmern indicates that he was already acutely aware of the importance of the economic factor in politics at the international level. Nevertheless, this did not reflect pessimism with regard to the future of international politics. “In the external relationships of the state,” he suggested, “it is clear that the Machiavellian epoch is drawing to a close. The application of ethical standards to the

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foreign policy of nations is a demand that has secured the acceptance of all who are concerned for the future of civilisation” (1919, 122). His thought thus combined a belief in the possibility of international change with the recognition of economic constraints. As discussed later in this chapter, this combination would lead him in the 1930s to adopt a position not dissimilar to that of his contemporary E.H. Carr. By the early 1920s, when Laski had taken up his lectureship at the LSE and begun to engage energetically in his work for the Labour Party and Fabian Society, a number of prominent Fabian socialists had for several years been considering the future of the international political system. Leonard Woolf had established himself as a leading anti-imperialist thinker and presented what he considered to be a practical case for international government (see Wilson 1995a, 124–6). In typically Fabian fashion Woolf was concerned to draw upon a wealth of facts rather than base his case upon idealistic aspirations—a concern that Laski would acknowledge approvingly in A Grammar of Politics (1925a, 617). Woolf, moreover, was particularly concerned with the economic factors of international politics, stressing that such economic motives were crucial to modern imperialism (see Wilson 2003). As I discuss shortly, in the 1930s Woolf and Laski would each participate in a public debate concerning the contribution of those factors to the rapidly escalating international crisis. Another prominent Fabian internationalist of the period was Graham Wallas, who held the Chair of Politics at the LSE immediately before Laski’s tenure. Although he had become disillusioned with the Fabian Society, Wallas did not abandon Fabian ideas. In his book The Great Society, first published in 1914, he thus attempted to explain the problems of the international order in psychological terms (Wallas 1924 [1914]). Wallas’s book impressed Laski greatly, so much so that he described its first chapter as “the type-chart which every investigator should follow” (1921a, 32). In that chapter Wallas had expressed (1924, 3–14) his belief in the power of rational argument as a vehicle for political reform. Science and technology had brought about a general change of social scale. Every state in the world, and every citizen of each state, was being drawn into a system of international relationships that together were forging a “great society.” The problem was, however, that individuals had yet to adapt their thought to this new form of society, their concern usually being limited to their own lives or their relationships with their closest neighbors. They had not realized that they were parts of this great society, believing themselves to be at most parts of their own nations. The results of this way of thinking were poverty, hostility, and war between the different nations. What was lacking was cohesive social

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organization on the scale of the great society. Notwithstanding his early praise for Wallas’s ideas, by the mid-1930s Laski would, as we shall see, find himself in profound disagreement with analyses of the international crisis that similarly posited the psychological attitudes of ordinary people as the driving force behind modern warfare. As was discussed in chapter 2, when relations among trade unions, employers, and government in Britain degenerated during the decade that followed the armistice of 1918 Laski was concerned to emphasize the psychological factor in industrial affairs. His admiration for Wallas’s work was, thus, consistent with other elements of his thought at that time. At the beginning of the 1920s, however, Laski had yet to investigate closely the thesis that psychological factors helped sustain the existing order in which war between nations was a continual danger. He had yet, furthermore, to speculate at length upon the prospects for a post-sovereign international order. Nevertheless, in the early 1920s he was distinctly unconvinced of the likelihood that the League of Nations might become a body capable of providing an institutional framework for cohesive international organization. Indeed, he shared Zimmern’s belief at that time that the capabilities of the League were in some quarters being vastly overestimated. After visiting Zimmern in Aberystwyth early in 1921 he declared in a letter to Justice Holmes that he had found himself “nine times out of ten in close agreement with [Zimmern’s] ideas.” “Together,” he went on, “we dismissed the League of Nations; together we agreed that every social panacea is the prelude to disillusion . . .” (Howe ed. 1953, 309). The League was, indeed, faced from its very inception with the problems associated with a world of sovereign powers. By setting up a permanent apparatus for regular conferences, and a judicial system of arbitration, the League sought to provide a system of guarantees against upheaval. Amongst the problems that soon emerged, however, the United States chose isolation rather than membership, the Soviet Union abstained for many years in distrust of the League’s intentions, and Germany was disallowed entry until 1926. Many of the states that did join were, moreover, reluctant to cooperate when their own interests were at stake. As Ian Clark has suggested, although the League represented an attempt to operate a highly formalized and institutionalized Concert system, the fundamental disequilibrium within the system meant that “the conditions for Concert were not present and the actual practice of states bore little resemblance to the Concert principles formally enshrined in the League” (Clark 1980, 110). Hence, Laski and Zimmern were in this important respect exceptionally far-sighted. Notwithstanding his earlier reservations regarding the League, by the time that A Grammar was published in 1925 Laski had begun to estimate just

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what the organization might realistically be able to achieve amidst the international instability that political actors and theorists were increasingly unable to ignore. “The interests of men are,” he argued in the final, lengthy chapter of A Grammar, “less and less set by the geographical frontiers of the nationState. Social organisation has transcended those limited boundaries” (1925a, 664–5). This meant that, although states might well seek to be equally responsive to the needs and rights of each of their citizens, the ability to do so would inevitably be influenced by international conditions. Hence, he predicted that just as some political decisions would have to be made at functional and regional levels within states, decisions on issues that transcended state boundaries would need to be made at international levels. For him, the implication was clear: the abolition of state sovereignty would be essential if democracy and freedom were to be secured and enhanced throughout the increasingly interdependent world. From this perspective in the mid-1920s Laski was convinced that the first step toward such an international system would be the foundation of the necessary political institutions. He now began to express cautious optimism that, in an environment wherein the consumer had come to realize that “he is a world-citizen whether he likes it or not” (1925a, 665), the League of Nations had the potential to bring about far-reaching international changes. The League might, he believed, provide the foundations upon which a new and democratic world order could be built. As is discussed shortly, his outlook would increasingly become one of disillusionment as this positive interpretation of world politics waned. For the moment, however, he contributed to the rationalization doctrine—prominent in British internationalist thought during the 1920s—that advances in science and technology would allow for worldwide planning for greater material prosperity (Pemberton 2002). Laski began A Grammar with the claim that (1925a, 15) the new world, in which philosophers and politicians alike had now to work, was vastly more complex than that of the previous century. Advances in science had not only produced methods and tools unknown in the old world, but also changed the scale of human interaction. Laski was thus acute in his perception of the landscape of world politics. The realm was, indeed, shrinking in which states could act independently. As their actions increasingly affected the affairs of one another, their autonomy was diminishing. When the early signs of these international processes had begun to appear in the mid-nineteenth century, Marx and Engels had recognized (1968 [1848], 36–40) that capitalism was rapidly becoming a global system. By the time that Laski came to write A Grammar the system had developed to the extent to which Laski was able to describe its features in a way that

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anticipated the idiom of later International Relations theory. As he saw it: The whole world has been reduced at least to the unity of interdependence; and the politicians of Tokio [sic] make social decisions not less momentous for New York than those of Chicago or Washington. And this physical mutuality is supported by an economic system the mere description of which is so intricate that specialists hardly agree either upon its character or the results of its working. (1925a, 20) For him (1925a, 64–5), such interdependence exposed the problem of sovereignty as a principle of international politics. Involving as it did the demand by states of the unqualified allegiance of their citizens, sovereign authority was incompatible with the interests and well-being of humanity. What humanity required was a system of international government through which the common life of states would be a matter of common agreement. Laski thus challenged the principle that international order must be built around a system of cooperating sovereign states. This state-centered principle had, of course, dominated international relations throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; it would, moreover, remain the orthodox position for decades to come (Clark 1980, chs. 4–7). Indeed, more recently, the prominent English school thinker Hedley Bull set out in clear terms his influential version of the state-centered principle (1977). As he suggests, the principle is based on the assumption that international order prevails so long as certain goals are shared and mutually respected by the sovereign units of the modern society of states. The first of these goals is considered to be the preservation of the system and society of states itself. The second goal is the maintenance of the independence or external sovereignty of each individual state. The general assumption is that the second goal is subordinate to the first, and that a third goal is thus the maintenance of peace between states— except in special circumstances or conformity with generally accepted principles. The modern society has, moreover, been managed on the assumption that three other interconnected primary goals are common to all social life. Those goals are, according to Bull, life protection, promise keeping, and stabilization of possession (see Bull 1977, 13–19). As we shall see in a moment, in the 1930s Laski would identify a major problem not only with state-centered theories of international order, but also with the rather naïve attempt of the League of Nations to challenge the dominant principle without confronting the issue of economic power. Witnessing the tendency of many states to disregard the League with impunity throughout that decade, Laski became convinced that he had himself previously been

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overoptimistic to expect all states at any particular time to concede to the preservation of the existing international society. The problem was that the interests of the international society were seen by the leaders of some states to conflict with their own goals. What thus resulted was a threat to both peace and the other supposedly shared goals. Why then had Laski felt able to support the League in A Grammar? The basis of Laski’s support (1925a, 47–8) was the inadequacy of the post-Reformation system, the states of which had become the ultimate channels of diplomatic intercourse. The problem was that the sanction of international law became the assent of states themselves. The implication was, he argued with reference to the German invasion of Belgium in 1914, a withdrawal as free as the original assent. What, in his view, was needed was an international organization that would not be dependent upon the benefaction of states. States would have to become subordinate to “an authority in which each may have a voice, but in which, also, that voice is never the self-determined source of decision” (1925a, 65). Such an authority would administer an international standard of conduct. He insisted that, whatever form a decentralized world-state might take, there would be “no room for separate sovereignties.” “Thoes [sic] functions which influence the life of the great society must,” he went on, “be subject to the common and concerted decisions of men” (1925a, 66). That Laski did not, at this point, fully discern the frailty of the League’s campaign for cosmopolitan democratic reform reflected his faith in reason as a force in politics. However, in his mind reason was always interspersed with a concern for practicalities. As was mentioned previously, he had several years earlier agreed with Zimmern that the capabilities of the League were limited. Being aware of some of its serious defects he had, accordingly, been deeply skeptical of the prospects for this attempt to build an international organization. Although he had adopted a far more positive attitude toward the League he continued to tread warily, mentioning specifically in A Grammar that the effectiveness of the organization would depend “very largely upon the degree of its inclusiveness” (1925a, 587). But while he acknowledged that the absence of “States like Russia and America” (1925a, 588) would be fatal to the proper fulfillment of the purposes of the League, he seems to have been working (1925a, 631) on the assumption that the United States and the Soviet Union would eventually join. Laski pinned his hopes upon the prospect that the League would overcome its initial problems and, thereafter, become juristically a super-state rather than merely an association of sovereign nations. But this did not mean that it would become “a State in the normal sense of the word.” What would

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become increasingly obvious as its functioning became adequate was, he opined, that the League would not be concerned primarily with direct administration. It would, rather, be concerned mainly to propound and accept solutions for administration by other bodies. The League would thus be “a source of principle rather than an agent of action; though it will . . . have to be regarded as the ultimate reserve force in society from which, in the last resort, definite action originates” (1925a, 589). Laski’s tentative support for the League at this time was based on his rather optimistic belief that, having served its purpose in international affairs, state sovereignty was now in the process of disappearance. He considered that sovereignty was no longer able to capture the allegiance of the individual, who had come to see that independence was futile in an interdependent world. Indeed, drawing upon his theories of democracy and liberty he stated as follows his interpretation of the typical outlook of the individual in the contemporary, interdependent world: There are concerns where he will allow intervention from none. There are matters where with those about him of his own kindred he claims the right to self-determination. Beyond, there are the greater issues which he sees are the common concern of mankind. It is the paradox of selfgovernment that, to be free, he must share with others in making the rules of fellowship among men. But life has taught us in the sternest fashion that without those rules there will be no fellowship, and without fellowship there will be no freedom. (1925a, 666) The disappearance of the sovereign state as the supreme unit in world politics would thus need to be followed by a new form of decision-making. Laski believed that decision-making on the international stage would have to involve “what Mr. Leonard Woolf has called ‘cosmopolitan law-making’ ” (1925a, 227), which would in turn require world government. This would be no easy matter to address. Indeed, the universal functions, the institutions that those functions would deem necessary, and the representation of nationstates in this scheme would need to be determined. The necessary spirit of international cooperation was not yet in evidence, and the League was merely “the façade of a structure which has yet to be called into being” (1925a, 228). Nevertheless, the denial of sovereignty for which the League tentatively stood provided a basis upon which to build. It was thus ultimately an internationalist perspective upon the conditions of freedom and equality that led Laski, however cautiously, to put his faith in the League of Nations. Liberation from inequality required the evolution of a global democratic

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system, wherein each state would concede its official sovereignty. Sovereignty was becoming obsolete, even though many clung to the concept. It would, he argued (1925a, 588), be wiser and more fruitful to adopt a different approach to international organization. This approach would discuss the political, economic, and social functions that needed to be performed and the organs thus required. The League, in his view at this time, had the potential to be well placed at the pinnacle of the organizational structure, which would consist of a range of commissions, consultative bodies, and other organs suitable for particular functions. In the case of political functions, Laski suggested (1925a, 589–606), the League should be required to register all treaties; provide the authority for the fixing of boundaries and neutral zones; determine the extent of disarmament and requirements for defense in particular instances; guarantee the rights of racial and religious minorities in cases where the redrawing of geographical boundaries would be unfeasible; provide a continual check on the activities of the mandatory powers in the mandated territories; and settle disputes peacefully and thus prevent war. In later editions of A Grammar (1938a, 606) Laski would acknowledge the early work of David Mitrany in the identification of sanction, especially economic blockade, as an important means by which to deal with those states that would threaten the peace. As is discussed in chapter 7, following in Laski’s footsteps in the 1940s, Mitrany would become the most prominent proponent of the functional approach. Turning to the social functions, Laski argued in A Grammar (1925a, 606–10) that they should include the securing of fair and humane labor conditions throughout the world. There would also be supervision of traffic in human beings and noxious drugs; the development of freedom of communication and transit, and equitable commercial treatment; the control and prevention of diseases that might be transmitted internationally; supervision of existing international bureaus and control of new ones; and promotion and assistance for the Red Cross organization. He also called for the intensification of effort in international cooperation in the fields of education, medicine, statistics, and law. Finally, economic functions should, he argued (1925a, 610–24), include that of the International Labour Office to press for reasonably uniform labor conditions. There should also be control of international investment; the regulation of tariffs; and the institution of trade boards to ensure that decent standards of living would be maintained globally, with embargos upon imports from recalcitrant powers. Regulations should be placed upon the exploitation of natural resources, thus enabling the stabilization of prices thereof. There would, furthermore, be a commission to regulate migration and ensure that

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emigrants were well informed and fairly treated, and also provision for the maintenance of worldwide minimal standards of labor conditions. Laski offered several examples of the way in which the international functional system might work in practice. On the large economic questions the League would allow coordinated consultation. This would not take place through the medium of foreign offices but between the relevant departments in each case. For example: “The British Board of Trade should deal directly with the French Ministry of Commerce; the Italian Minister of Agriculture should concert measures with the German Minister of Agriculture” (1925a, 618). In another example the imprint of his early pluralism was clearly evident. Rather than use the normal channels of diplomacy, which centralized issues, action should be localized, thus leading issues to be dealt with in terms of technique rather than prestige. Technique, moreover, would thus be developed. He elaborated as follows: A problem of oil in Downing Street may easily loom larger than it looms in Whitehall. Technique keeps the trivial in its right perspective. If a Foreign Office is brought in to grapple with a dispute about railways, almost inevitably a hinterland of discussion beyond railways begins to pervade the atmosphere. And to keep discussion technical has the great additional advantage of keeping it undramatic. It cannot easily be made a journalistic sensation. (1925a, 619) A further example demonstrated the socialist nature of his functional approach, and perhaps reflected his experience of committees to deal with labor disputes in Britain (see chapter 2). Discussing the value of special expert committees to deal with complex issues, he raised the issue of an official, such as a minister of labor, who argues that some given legislation is impossible in his own state. In such a case, Laski stressed, “the possibility that his argument will be overthrown by a workers’ delegate from his own State not merely adds piquancy to the debate, but also genuinely leads to care in the formulation of objections to that legislation” (1925a, 623). Laski had clearly invested much effort in applying the concept of function to international organization. Nevertheless, after the publication of A Grammar in 1925, he grew increasingly impatient with the performance of the League in practice. After a visit to Geneva in 1926 where he once again met Zimmern who had by this time become an ardent supporter of the League, Laski reported to Holmes that Zimmern’s crusade for the organization “does not help discussion” (Howe ed. 1953, 870–1). In the lecture he delivered during that visit Laski voiced (1927c, 288–9) his dissatisfaction

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with the League in its existing state of development. Of paramount importance was not, he stressed, the League, but rather the victory of the international idea for which the League stood. Those things that affected the world in common needed to be decided by the world in common. In the making of those decisions, “nothing matters except the ultimate consent, upon the basis of a rational judgement of the facts, of the parties concerned” (1927c, 295). Whilst still confident that neither force nor sovereignty would decide anything in the long run he warned that, as it stood, the League was incapable of making the necessary common decisions. In his lecture Laski proposed changes to the existing international organization that are interesting not least for the similarities they bear to David Held’s framework, more than 60 years later, for the development of cosmopolitan democracy. Among the features Held (1993, 37–44; 1995, 270–8) proposed were the following: overlapping networks of power and regional parliaments; a rights-based democratic international law, constituting an empowering legal order; legal principles that would delimit individual and collective action; a set of standards that could not be legitimately violated by any political regime or civil association; and the ability of individuals to sue the various political authorities at international courts. Laski’s lecture had included a call for greater courage on the part of the League: I should want the ability, above all, to defy the great powers of the world, even if the great powers of the world chose to withdraw from its councils. I should want the ending of the rule of unanimity, and its replacement by some such proportionate majority as a two-thirds majority. I should want the extension of the International Court so that the individual citizen in any state could sue the sovereign state before that International Court and obtain satisfaction for private wrong. Above all . . . I should want a much more rigorous and far-reaching control of the mandates system than at present exists. (1927c, 301) Notwithstanding his critical stance, Laski continued to support the League on the basis of its underlying purpose for the remainder of the decade. Indeed, writing to Holmes in 1929 after a further visit to Geneva, he expressed his sense of the “high purpose by which all the officials of the League are informed.” It really was, he went on, “impressive to meet a real and coherent zeal for a world-interest above the separate interests of the different states there” (Howe ed. 1953, 1139). In the early 1930s Laski maintained his support for the League (1930a, 241–4; 1932e); but, as doubts grew in his mind whether states would submit

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to reason and relinquish their claims to sovereignty, his support became increasingly qualified. He began, moreover, to doubt whether international political reform would in itself be enough to curb the power of capital. This doubt was well founded. Indeed, more recently, the need to address the problem of uncooperative vested interests has been discussed by Held, whose strategy of cosmopolitan democratization depends upon the redistribution of power and authority from existing states to various levels within a global structure. Held argues (1993, 46–7) for a gradual approach to cosmopolitan democratization, which would have short-term and long-term implications for politics and civil society. On the political side this might begin with such measures as regionalization and the institutional reform of the United Nations. In the longer term this might lead to a substantial global polity. In the case of civil society, nonmarket types of organization and distribution might lead to a system of self-regulating institutions and diverse patterns of ownership. Nevertheless, as Held has conceded (1993, 42), so long as industrial and financial interests retain their capacity to set the agenda of politics, a scheme for cosmopolitan democracy would need to find ways to prevent intransigent corporations and interest groups from distorting the democratic conditions and processes. This, indeed, is a point that has been emphasized by critics of what have become known as top-down strategies of cosmopolitan democratization, such as that of Held (see Cochran 2002, 522–3; Grugel 2003, 268–72). To overcome the problem Held proposes the “entrenchment of democracy in economic life” (1995, 251). States and companies that disregarded the terms of cosmopolitan democratic law would be excluded from the new, global economic system. In the early 1930s, Laski had begun to anticipate the gravity of the problems that might be faced in dealing with economic interests. As we saw in chapter 2, the collapse of the Labour government in August 1931 under pressure from international finance had, in his view, exposed the subservience of political to economic power. Hence, he became convinced that the reform of civil society would be particularly problematic. Indeed reaction against such reform would hold back international political change. The cautious optimism he had expressed in A Grammar thus gave way to his Marxinspired view of the limits of international reform within the existing capitalist system. This ideological shift helps illustrate the point that has been made by Paul Rich (2002, 117) that, rather than imagine an all-encompassing idealist tradition of inter-War international thought, one might identify a liberal internationalist tradition of writers such as Zimmern, and the quite different Marxist socialist internationalism. As Laski would suggest in a lecture he delivered in the United States in 1939, he had, until he witnessed

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the rise and spread of fascism in Europe, “been a very good liberal socialist, believing that the clash of reason would in the long run result in the victory of truth” (1939a, 69). In the course of the 1930s he had shifted from the left wing of liberal internationalism to a very distinctive position within the Marxist camp. The next section examines that shift. The League and the Problems of Capitalism By reflecting upon the evolutionary nature of Laski’s ideological perspective, one can appreciate that this change to a far more radical analysis of international politics was gradual. As was mentioned briefly in the previous section, until the early 1930s he clung to the increasingly remote hope that the League might succeed, if only leaders of individual nation-states would see reason and abandon sovereignty. Lecturing in Geneva in August 1931, just as the governmental crisis in Britain was unfolding, he described as “necessarily obsolete” the view that regarded states as “the final term in the institutional equation” (1932e, 189). His conviction was growing that governments were at the mercy of economic power. If nation-states were left to act as they deemed fit in areas and issues of common interests it was, he suggested prophetically, inevitable that sooner or later there would be conflict. “We have,” he went on, “to find the concepts of cosmopolitan thinking as the very basis of security for civilized existence” (1932e, 191). Laski’s cautious optimism in the 1920s, regarding the prospects for developing a cosmopolitan democratic order in the foreseeable future, had rested on the hope that the processes of economic, technological, and social change were propelling international relations toward a new order. In that new global order decisions would, he had hoped, be made democratically at appropriate levels, without the hindrance of state sovereignty. Now the view that the international system might eventually take on an entirely new shape has, as we have seen, been expressed more recently by cosmopolitan democrats such as Held, who detects “processes and forces of globalization that increasingly enmesh us in overlapping communities of fate.” The rapid growth of mutual interconnectedness and vulnerability, Held goes on, is introducing new circumstances of cosmopolitanism, which require an international political system, “given shape and form by a common framework of law and regulation” (2002, 23). Held thus holds out hope that states might gradually, and peaceably, transfer some of their powers to new units of governance. Other theorists have placed less faith in the top-down process, arguing instead that cosmopolitan democratization requires a bottom-up approach, emanating from people in new public spheres rather than from the

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existing holders of power and authority (see Cochran 2002). Significantly, by the early 1930s an aspect not unlike this bottom-up approach had begun to enter Laski’s international thought. Laski’s demand for the establishment of concepts of cosmopolitan thinking in international relations can perhaps be discussed in terms of the discourse approach to bottom-up cosmopolitan thought. One thinker who takes such an approach is John Dryzek (1999), who argues that democratization on a global sphere should be pursued through discursive sources of governance, rather than through formal governmental institutions. As we have seen, the discourse that Laski challenged throughout his career was that of sovereignty. He sought to confront the sovereignty discourse by promoting the very different discourse of the civitas maxima (universal state). The community of states, he argued in his essay “Law and the State” at the end of the 1920s, should be regarded as such a civitas maxima, the laws of which would enjoy primacy over all other law. Right and wrong were notions that predicated the existence of the international society of states. Hence, the norms of that society would be rules that were necessary for the realization of right and avoidance of wrong. The authority of the civitas maxima would be derived from “rules discovered to be necessary for the maintenance of the common international life” (1929c, 290). As he framed it in his lecture of August 1931 in Geneva, the new philosophy that international law should seek to embody must “begin by postulating the society of states, the civitas maxima in which all have their being, as the source from which the competence of all individual states is derived.” In a crucial sentence he went on to suggest that the law of this new society would be “binding upon its individual members” (1932e, 195). This would not only represent “the abandonment of the hypothesis of sovereignty,” (1932e, 196) but also give substance to the idea of international equality. International law would be equally binding not only on states, but also upon each individual person. Laski thus combined an element of the discursive bottom-up approach with a concern for the sort of new international institutions of government postulated by top-down cosmopolitans such as Held. Laski’s concern to build new international institutional institutions was thus characterized by his continuing and resolute opposition to sovereignty. Contemporary cosmopolitans such as Held (2002) and Thomas Pogge (1992) differ from Laski in this respect, arguing that sovereignty should be distributed vertically among a range of institutions at different geographical levels, thus facilitating and consolidating cosmopolitan democracy. Laski would have insisted that this would not in fact get to the roots of the problem of sovereignty. He was concerned to replace the sovereignty discourse in

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its entirety because sovereignty was, as he saw it, a concept that helped sustain the competitive ethos that was itself incompatible with genuine cosmopolitan cooperation. The illusion that ultimate power was held by political institutions would continue to mask the class dominance that permeated the entire institutional apparatus. But this was not all: that illusion would obscure the alternatives that the much-needed economic change would bring within reach. As he put it: “Ideas like those of sovereignty and the national State have reached their apogee; they no longer correspond to the facts that we confront” (1932e, 208). As we saw earlier in this section, Laski was not content to concentrate on what would now be known as a discursive approach to cosmopolitan democratization. It was not enough just to challenge the sovereignty discourse. A successful challenge would introduce an environment in which experimentation with institutional structures would not be impeded by false notions of permanence. Now, the possibility of an experimental, pragmatic approach to cosmopolitan democratic change, in which functions would be undertaken by new institutions emerging from civil society, has recently been proposed by Molly Cochran (2002, 529–39). Laski perceived such an approach in terms of function. “Before our eyes,” he stressed, “there grows a world which needs cosmopolitan thinking” (1932e, 208). This meant that a way must be found to approach “the problem of the form of the world community.” The best way to do this would be “through the study of the functions it must undertake” (1932e, 204). The rejection of the notion of sovereignty would pave the way for this study. Crucially, any attempt to develop the appropriate organizational framework would depend upon two key considerations. First, capitalism was incapable of solving international social problems. The capitalist system would thus need to be replaced with an international, egalitarian economy. Second, the present forms of government would not be adequate to the functions required of them. Hence, there was a necessity to “experiment with the possibilities of functional devolution.” “We must,” he elaborated: “seek to make things like cotton, coal, wheat, gold, units of governance in the same way as territorial areas, and link them up with the operations of the League” (1932e, 206). In his lecture Nationalism and the Future of Civilization (1932d), which he delivered in London in 1932, Laski continued to pursue some of the themes he had discussed in Geneva the previous year. As he put it: “We have to think of cosmopolitan law-making; it certainly cannot be made effective if the sovereignty of the state blocks the way to its construction” (1932d, 59). Once again describing the international environment in terms of interdependence, he argued that sovereignty was a problem that prevented the

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transformation of the economic conditions within states. Only such a transformation could, in his view, bring about the circumstances in which the equal claim among men upon the common stock of welfare would be adequately recognized. Only thus, in turn, could a mere political democracy develop into its fuller form. Equality would, he argued, put an end to the imperialist consequences of capitalism that were so detrimental to the development of a world community, the common interests of which would not be at the mercy of particular states. Laski’s lingering optimism would soon be dented. The worsening of the international environment of the 1930s led him to become deeply skeptical of the belief he had hitherto maintained—the belief that the problems of an interdependent world might be solved through rational argument. The consequences in terms of his international theory can, perhaps, be seen most clearly by turning to an appendix he added to Nationalism and the Future of Civilization when he published the piece in a collection of essays at the end of the decade. “The technical pivot upon which our power to end aggression turns,” he argued in continuity with the original lecture, “is the abolition of sovereignty.” But in a crucial change he now claimed that, for the new world order to control the social, economic, and political functions of power politics, there needed to be, “pari passu, with its organization, thoroughgoing reconstruction of the internal order of each state towards the kind of equality of which this essay speaks” (1940h, 225). The boundaries between nation-states would, he elaborated, continue to “interfere with the total wellbeing of the civitas maxima” so long as “the contradiction between the forces of production and the relations of production persist in their present form” (1940h, 226). What then was the major factor of the turbulent international environment that consolidated Laski’s far more pessimistic approach to the reconstruction of the international order? Throughout the previous chapters of this book the rise of fascism has been discussed as a major factor that influenced the evolution, from around the mid-1920s, of Laski’s political thought. It was, indeed, Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 that confirmed Laski’s growing suspicions that the League would not be able to fulfill its purposes. In the preface to the 1934 edition of A Grammar Laski claimed that it was now apparent that the League was unable to overcome the resistance from sovereign states to international political reform. Fascism had illustrated the way in which capitalism, in its condition of distress, made the effective and creative operation of international institutions such as the League impossible to fulfill. “For capitalism (though in many aspects itself international) is organised on a national basis; and, since this is the case, the owners of capital in each national community

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utilise the framework of State power for their protection” (1938a, 6). “No reconciliation is possible,” he thus concluded, between the necessary policies of capitalism “and the idea of a world-community founded upon the sovereign State’s surrender of its right to be judge in its own cause” (1938a, 6–7). Laski’s pessimism in the early 1930s was shared by his fellow British socialists G.D.H. and M.I. Cole, who suggested that the World Economic Conference of 1933 had “brought plainly to the surface the depth and difficulty of the economic, as well as the political, antagonisms which hold the great countries apart” (Cole and Cole 1933, 6). The newly elected President Roosevelt had failed to gain the support of other countries for an international reflation policy. Furthermore, events in Europe had, the Coles suggested, made remoter than ever “an appeal to the spirit of international common sense” (1933, 6). The Nazi victory in Germany had brought about an intense if not immediate threat of European war and, moreover, “smashed German Social Democracy past repair, and dealt a heavy blow at European Socialism as a whole . . .” (1933, 8). In his own reflections upon the World Economic Conference of 1933, Laski argued the following year that the antagonisms between competing capitalist states that had become so apparent meant that “the sovereign State will not . . . be persuaded to submit its will to a power outside of itself ” (1938a, 6). Laski did not, it should be noted, believe that the problems of the existing international order would necessarily disappear upon the demise of capitalism. It was not, in his view, inconceivable that war might be waged in a world wherein each sovereign state sought to serve the general welfare of all of its citizens equally. He aired these views in 1933, in the chapter “The Economic Foundations of Peace,” which he contributed to a collection edited by Woolf entitled The Intelligent Man’s Way to Prevent War. In order to address the central cause of war, Laski argued, it was necessary to realize that “an interdependent world, whatever the internal organisation of its constituent parts, is incompatible with a system of political units which bear no relation to that inescapable unity” (1933a, 502). In a significant respect Laski’s internationalism resembled that of Woolf. Like Laski, Woolf believed that, during the first few years following the First World War, the signs were promising that civilization would prevail over barbarism. “But,” Woolf stressed, noting the return of political instability, the growing tension between nations, and the rise of fascism in Europe, “the ebb was a short one and about 1925 the process of breakdown or break up of European civilization began again” (1933, 7). To prevent the completion of that process, and thus victory of the barbarians, Western society would need to solve its economic problems and ordinary people would have to

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change their attitude toward war—people should reject war, and compel their rulers to do likewise. Now as Woolf noted (1933, 17), Laski saw the causes of imperialism and war in economic terms. As was mentioned earlier, this was an interpretation that Woolf had likewise long held. The important point of Laski’s contribution was the belief that whilst economic considerations might still lead to war in a socialist world, this was probably preventable. In a capitalist world, on the other hand, economic considerations would inevitably lead to war in a capitalist world. He referred to the development of economic imperialism in the nineteenth century to illustrate his point. It had been discovered that the power of the national state could support investors by dominating new markets through the actual or potential use of armed force. “Competing cliques of business men” had, in the search for exceptional profits, “jockeyed for position against one another” (1933a, 505). What was crucial to success was the identification by the businessmen of their aims with the national well-being. Hence, each sought to employ all the resources at their disposal in order to exploit the emotions of nationalism. When they had thus been able to identify their states with their efforts, “the pacific nationalism of the mid-nineteenth century was transformed into imperialism; and it was the essential nature of the latter to employ the military resources of the state for its protective armament” (1933a, 505). Government, he argued, “becomes so identified with the investor, that an attack on his profit is equated with a threat to the national honor” (1933a, 508). Hence, “invisible empires” would bring into their service “all those profound and tragic emotions of nationalism before which neither the claims of reason nor the sanctity of international agreements seem able to secure effective recognition” (1933a, 514). Capitalism caused war. Notwithstanding his shift to the Left in the early 1930s, Laski’s analysis of international politics during that decade might, at a glance, seem to fit neatly into the idealist, or utopian category, which E.H. Carr (2001 [1939]) famously painted with a broad brush in 1939 to characterize inter-War thinking generally. In his idiosyncratic work The Twenty Years’ Crisis Carr bundled diverse inter-War internationalists into that category. One might indeed consider as utopian Laski’s search for ways to consolidate democracy and freedom on a global scale by overcoming the restraints imposed by the capitalist socioeconomic order. Laski’s argument that this would require the fiction of state sovereignty to be unmasked, and the international system of competing sovereign states subsequently to be transcended, might seem to substantiate the idealist interpretation of his thought. A closer look at the work of both Laski and Carr, however, reveals that such an interpretation would serve actually to neglect more than it revealed.

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The influence of Carr’s approach, and especially the subsequent conception of a clearly defined Idealist school that includes all believers in the possibility of a change of international order, has, moreover, not only disguised the unique and significant elements in the ideas of many thinkers of the period (see Wilson 1995b; 1998; Schmidt 2002a), but also drawn attention away from Carr’s own interpretation of the global crisis. Carr’s utopians were those statesmen and thinkers who believed that transformation could come about without fundamental social and economic change. What he meant by utopianism was not the vision of an alternative future free from the ills of the present era, but rather the broadly liberal belief in a harmony of interests that could be attained if only states would refrain from competing and act as members of the international community to which they belonged. Carr saw this as merely an often naïve justification for the international, inequitable status quo (Wilson 1998, 13; Cox 2001, xxiv–xxv). Laski’s reflective approach of revising theory in the light of experience, along with his recognition that fundamental reform would face unyielding opposition from the vested interests of the existing order, made his international thought particularly distinctive and nonutopian. Indeed, interestingly his challenge to conventional interpretations of the world order is in some ways similar to that of Carr. To appreciate this it is useful to note some affinities amongst the ideas of Carr, Laski, and the German sociologist Karl Mannheim. Mannheim was recruited to the LSE in 1936 by means of a scheme, in which Laski played a central role, to help academics who were persecuted by the Nazi regime (see Newman 1993, 153). Mannheim became known largely for his theory that knowledge is shaped by the individual’s social situation. On this basis Mannheim (1972 [1936]) constructed a generalization of ideological and utopian thought. The former reflected the ideas of ruling and established groups, and played down negative features of society. Utopian thought, on the other hand, by and large reflected the ideas of revolutionaries and the excluded, and usually emphasized only the negative features of the existing society. Carr was influenced profoundly by Mannheim; but, while he worked with the sociologist’s generalization, he produced a rather different opposition (see Jones 1997, 233–9; Rich 2000, 201–3). As was mentioned earlier, utopianism was for Carr a label that could be attached to a range of thinkers who sought to resolve the current international problems without fundamental change. In opposition was realism, which represented the perception of the world in terms of power relations that were specific to particular times and circumstances. Interestingly, he briefly suggested (2001, 164) that the

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realist view was well summed up by Laski’s idea that at any point in time law reflects the power of the class that holds economic power. Carr thought it not inconceivable that modern conceptions of citizenship might be harnessed to overcome the opposition of utopia and reality. Hence, notwithstanding his scathing treatment of the so-called utopians, he believed that the forms of citizenship that gave them hope might be drawn upon to stimulate new forms of international community in which sovereignty would be undermined (see Linklater 1997). Like Carr, Laski believed on the one hand that theories of citizenship were of considerable value, and on the other hand that those theories could not be put into practice in the existing world order, dominated as it was by the notion of state sovereignty. Laski set out in the influential paper “The Economic Foundations of Peace” of 1933 his belief that mainstream thinkers and statesmen, who dealt merely with the symptoms, would always fail to get to the roots of the fundamental economic problems of international relations. As he put it: We can increase security positively, by a technique of mutual assistance against an aggressor. We can increase security negatively, by a system of international disarmament. We can seek by the intensive and widespread training of intelligence to inoculate men against the baser sort of patriotism which obeys so inertly the orders of the state as to abdicate, if indeed, it has grasped, its profounder obligations to mankind. It is yet a crude Utopianism to believe that any of these achievements is more than a partial safeguard against war. (1933a, 501) One can thus see that Carr’s use of “utopianism” was closer to Laski’s view than to Mannheim’s view of it as a radical approach. Nevertheless, in order to detect a thread with which one can link these very different interpretations of utopianism one might begin by noting that Mannheim considered (1972, 108–9) as ideological the liberal approach to international affairs. This liberal approach would have been deemed utopian by Laski and Carr. Now to discover the thread it is important to note that Mannheim did suggest (1972, 197–206) that there are liberal forms of utopianism, which stress that progress is being made in pursuit of their normative goals whilst neglecting the reality of events on the ground. He was thus aware that his two concepts might overlap one another. Carr did not, then, embark upon a total reversal of Mannheim’s distinction when he arrived at a view of utopianism not dissimilar to that which Laski had briefly employed. We have established that Laski and Carr each considered from their similar conceptions that utopian thought neglected the economic factor.

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The consequences of this neglect were far-reaching. In fact, Laski stressed, the roots of war lay in the economic field. Whilst the sovereign state was portrayed as the guardian of rights and liberties, what was being tragically ignored was the dominance of the state by particular economic classes. The state might act as arbiter, but ultimately the interests of one group or class prevailed. Until the 1930s he had been optimistic that such dominance could be gradually undermined; but events throughout the world led him to the Marxist view that resistance to change would be far more determined than he had suspected. Carr believed similarly that in reality economic interests were the driving forces behind the political activities of states. What was presented as the national interest was in fact shaped by the requirements of social cohesion in the service of particular economic interests (Goldfischer 2002, 706–10). It has, indeed, been argued that Carr “managed to look beyond the ideological masks which power wore and reveal its hidden mainsprings” (Cox 2001, xlix). Likewise, as we saw in chapter 5, Laski sought to remove the mask of sovereignty from class dominance (also see Lamb 1997), and it was from this perspective that he discussed international affairs in the 1930s. As suggested later in this chapter, by the end of the decade Laski and Carr also saw the slide into world war in not dissimilar terms. Starting from a cautiously optimistic view regarding the capacity of the League of Nations to represent the different but interdependent interests of its members in peace, Laski had, by the end of the 1930s, come to see the League as a toothless institution given the existing configuration of economic power (see Lamb 1999b). Carr likewise considered that the League had been wholly inadequate to deal with the international problems of the era. If we turn to Laski’s work of the early to mid-1930s we find that, although he still stressed (1935a, 218) that rules needed to be formulated to regulate the involvement of states in the network of international relationships, he had come to perceive that such regulation would face significant problems that he had earlier overlooked. He now argued (1933a, 543–7; 1935a, 254) that the transcendence of sovereignty as a principle for international relations would have to be preceded by the development within states of a form of economic democracy. As was discussed in chapter 3, he considered the fundamental problem to be that this new form of democracy would be incompatible with capitalism. Correspondingly, he recognized in the 1930s and 1940s (esp. 1933a; 1935a, ch. 3; 1943a, ch. 6) that the problems of building an international democratic society were at present intertwined with those of attempting in vain to combine a capitalist economy with a democratic polity. His experience of politics and industrial relations in Britain, of the obstacles to Roosevelt’s New Deal in the United States, and especially of

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the emergence in continental Europe of dictatorships willing to uphold capitalism by brutal means, all convinced him that, for the system of sovereign states to be replaced by a cosmopolitan system responsive to the rights of each human being, capitalism would have to be uprooted in its entirety. Laski was adamant that capitalist states posed the immediate threat to international peace. Massed economic privilege now used the principle of national sovereignty as a means to greater power. The arrest of potential wars would require of the great states “a surrender of the authority implied in their sovereign power” (1933a, 520). Driven by the pressure of the economically privileged, such states were unwilling to abandon such authority. The fact is, Laski stressed, “that the power profitably to export capital, when the power of the state is available to protect its results, is the new form of conquest in the modern world; and the exporter prefers the risk of war to the surrender of profit” (1933a, 520). The value of Laski’s analysis to an understanding of the global political economy today might be questioned. Laski did not, after all, fully recognize the importance of structural power as an alternative to direct imperialism or war. As Susan Strange explained (1994) many decades later, structural power might be employed to shape the framework of the international economy within which other states and actors operate. Nevertheless, what makes Laski’s thought on the problems of imperialism important is his emphasis on sovereignty. The basis of sovereign authority, which continues to play a crucial role in international politics, can be understood most clearly with reference to its emergence as a guiding principle in international relations. Having begun to develop in the late Middle Ages, it was only in the seventeenth century that sovereignty became a principle governing the relations between states (Murphy 1996). The normative conception of sovereignty that links authority, territory, and population in states is, thus, not a timeless principle. As was discussed in chapter 5, Laski was aware of the historical roots of sovereignty theory. The conception of sovereignty needs, moreover, to be maintained continually by statespersons, diplomats, and intellectuals. Practices consistent with its ideal need to be established, policed, and defended by delegitimating or suppressing challenges to its authority (Biersteker and Weber 1996, 3). Once again, we saw in chapter 5 that Laski fully grasped this point. Laski’s attention to these processes melded the domestic and international aspects of his theory that the doctrine of sovereignty provides a fundamentally normative underpinning for the state’s role of masking class power. By contrast, an implication of late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century globalization theory is that, in the contemporary international environment, states can only react to the unharnessed flow of economic relations. What this overlooks, however, is that states are, in fact, still invaluable to capital both as guardians of

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interests and administrators of the international investment and operation of those interests (Camilleri and Falk 1992, ch. 4). Indeed, the globalization of the world economy has for several decades been interpreted by some on the Left as having been induced in order to reproduce the prevalent system of class relations on a universal scale (see esp. Poulantzas 1975, 49–50). What is significant is that, under the illusion that capital moves uncontrollably across the globe, states have done much to shape the changes which the international economy experiences (Panitch 1994; Piven 1995, 112–13). This makes for a crucial role for states in an international economy in which the dominance of capitalism in production and finance permeates through the cultural and military structures of power (Strange 1994, esp. chs. 2, 4, and 5). Laski’s analysis in “The Economic Foundations of Peace” helps expose sovereignty as a concept that enables the state to become a vehicle for the exercise of such power. If the power behind the sovereign authority is largely capitalist, then the states will compete by and large on behalf of capitalist interests. This presents a problem for attempts to create a new cooperative international order. Hence, although Laski’s concern with imperialism is now rather outmoded, he seems to have been on firmer ground in claiming in 1935, in The State in Theory and Practice, that “the high road to an effective international order lies through the reconstruction of the class relations of modern society” (1935a, 254). Although, as we have seen, he acknowledged that this would not guarantee peace between states, he argued that if capital investment, productive power, and political authority were to serve the interests of the community rather than the few, the role of sovereignty as a cloak for exploitation by the dominant interests in society would be in effect redundant. The transformation of capitalist society was, he argued, “the essential pre-requisite of an international community with the prospect of seriously functioning.” This alone would make “possible the abandonment of sovereignty in that form which strikes at the root of peace” (1935a, 255). Laski anticipated responses from critics who might deny that the type of capitalism he discussed was capitalism in its pure, free trade form. He acknowledged that war would never erupt if states and capitalists came to the agreement that there would be no state assistance, but stressed that pure conceptual capitalism had never existed outside of the economic literature. Hence, what needed to be analyzed were “the habits of the capitalists we know” (1935a, 230). He summarized those habits as follows: The capitalism we know has at every stage of its history sought the protection of the state for its operations. It has demanded, and secured, tariffs, subsidies, quotas, the influence of the Foreign Office for its trading

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agents abroad, the use of the state’s prestige (a pseudonym for the right to call upon its armed forces) to protect the claims it has thought fit to make in foreign countries. The history of Egypt since the British occupation, the history of Africa in the last two generations, of China, of Mexico, of the central American states, are quite unintelligible except on the basis of a capitalism which has been able to put the force of the state behind its enterprises. (1935a, 231) As he saw it, the state had a crucial external role, which mirrored its internal role: “The value to it of its sovereignty in the international field is precisely that, in extreme cases, it can bring force into play against any rival which seeks to interfere with the expression of its will” (1935a, 235). The extension of democracy within states to the economic sphere would be crucial if this international problem were to be rectified. In the absence of the economic element of democracy, Laski argued, the power of the property-owning class would not only determine the habits of the state; that class would also be “certain to use that power in the international field both to consolidate and reinforce their authority” (1935a, 257). This, for him, threw into doubt the capacity of capitalist-dominated states to yield to an international order when vested class interests were at stake. A society of socialist states, on the other hand, would be “in a position, to which no other order of life can pretend, to consider its economic problems upon a basis of genuine morality and goodwill” (1935a, 254–5). Only a socialist society would escape oppression by problems of prestige, and be able to engage in deliberate and coherent planning. No other society could avoid the class relations within which such problems reside. The international and internal spheres of politics are linked, he claimed, because a state is “bound, by its own inherent logic, to promote the interests involved in that given system. Those ‘highest national interests’ that the state therefore secures must always be set in the context of its own economic constitution” (1935a, 227). The position that Laski had come to take in the mid-1930s regarding the problems of international politics helps demonstrate the descriptive limitations of the broad idealist, or utopianism label that tends rather arbitrarily to be applied to international thinkers of the inter-War period. Laski, indeed, had come to share H.N. Brailsford’s long-held thesis (1915; 1938) that imperialism and war are conditions to which capitalism almost inevitably leads as states seek to expand or defend the interests of their dominant classes. This was a distinctly nonutopian outlook. In the 1930s Laski supported Brailsford on this point in a lively debate with, amongst others, Woolf and Sir Norman Angell. It is useful to examine the debate in some detail in order to situate Laski’s position within its intellectual context.

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The debate arose largely in response to Angell’s publication in 1933 of a new, retitled edition (1933) of his book The Great Illusion, which had originally been published in 1909. Angell’s central message in the book was that war between large industrial states was futile. In the period before the First World War that message secured the enthusiastic support of several prominent industrialists and bankers in Britain, and was subsequently promoted in the International Polity movement that was funded by Angell’s wealthy promoters. The message of The Great Illusion was thus broadcast to a wide audience before the outbreak of war (Miller 1995, 101). The new version in 1933 was intended to illustrate the continuing relevance, as its author saw it, of the book’s original theme. Although Angell served briefly for Labour in parliament from 1929 until the 1931 Crisis, he was always ideologically more liberal than socialist. He was influenced greatly by the nineteenth-century liberals John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. From Mill, he adopted the fear of unenlightened or manipulated public opinion, and from Spencer the belief that as societies developed they became peaceful, rational, and efficient (Ashworth 1999, 36–8). Angell argued (1933, 79–347) in the early, pre-War editions of The Great Illusion that, while it was largely accepted that states must compete with one another in an expansionary power struggle to meet the needs and welfare of their citizens, this was an assumption that was fundamentally wrong. Military power and warfare could not promote the economic welfare of a nation. The reason, very broadly, was that the credit that was needed to sustain the modern capitalist system was, along with the commercial contracts of which that system was composed, largely international. Military conquest as a means to economic wealth was now outdated, as it disrupted the economy, undermined credit-dependent wealth, and was thus self-injurious. What lay at the root of war was, he concluded, not capitalism but the anarchic nationalism that characterized the thoughts of ordinary people. If those people could be brought to understand the futility of military conquest, this would be reflected in the conduct of their statesmen in foreign policy. A system of rules based on common agreement could thus be developed to enable the capitalist international economy to function smoothly. The way to reach such a situation would be through rational argument, which would reduce peoples’ susceptibility to the arguments of those few capitalists who did profit from war. Whilst Angell and Laski did not agree on the cause of war, both thinkers saw particular wars as parts of a wider problem. It was necessary, argued Angell, to discover what motives stand in the way of creating an internationally workable world, a world freed in some measure from the stresses which

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present policies create and which war is an attempt to relieve. To the degree, and broadly only to the degree, to which we succeed in that purpose, shall we succeed in the prevention of war. (1933, 5) Referring to the conditions that had been agreed internationally after the War, and to the situation in the 1930s that had thus been created, he argued that the facts and arguments that explain the futility of war also explained the futility of the existing policies regarding reparations, debts, and tariffs. Such facts and arguments would, furthermore, explain “the impossibility of maintaining a stable monetary system indispensable to international trade, side by side with the economic nationalism which threatens to destroy Europe . . .” (1933, 7). The problem was that these arguments had not entered into public consciousness; otherwise the Treaty of Versailles would never have been signed. That it was in fact signed, Angell stressed, did not mean that government and treaty-makers had believed its dubious clauses to be feasible. It was a result, rather, of nationalistic public opinion, which demanded the continued preponderance of power rather than international cooperation. The political and economic chaos of the early 1930s was, he thus insisted, “due in large part to the continued prevalence in the public mind of just that group of fallacies which this book was written, twenty-five years ago, to expose” (1933, 3). The debate over Angell’s thesis in the new version of The Great Illusion was played out in the letters pages of the New Statesman and Nation in 1935. The interest generated by the debate was such that the contributing letters were published as a symposium later that year, edited by Henry Brinton (1935), entitled Does Capitalism Cause War? In one of his contributions Brailsford conceded that, in an interdependent world, war could not benefit the mass of an aggressor’s citizens. He stressed, however, that interdependence was far from absolute, and that in the forms of closed markets, fields for capital exploitation and investment, and monopolies of raw materials, imperialist war benefited capitalists. Moreover, an armed state was necessary if capitalists were to be successful in the modern world, as great inequalities within capitalist societies made imperialist conquest necessary as an outlet for trade (Brinton ed. 1935, 13–19). Angell retorted that he had never denied that capitalists profited from empire. The point, however, was that British capitalists had profited to a far greater extent from economic exploitation that did not involve control by military power (Brinton ed. 1935, 28). Brailsford responded, however, by insisting that military power was necessary in order for capitalism to “back its coercive apparatus at home, to hold down unfree dependencies abroad, to

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sustain prestige diplomacy in the hunt for concessions, and to fence in areas of privileged or monopolist trading and investment” (Brinton ed. 1935, 39). So long as military power served these purposes, war could be averted. Once power was challenged, however, war between competing imperial units became inevitable. Woolf intervened in the debate in an attempt to draw attention to the powerful points made by the antagonists, and to note that neither Angell nor Brailsford were justified in dismissing each other’s arguments so strongly. Both economic and psychological factors contributed to the causes of war. Woolf ’s contribution is interesting for its attempt to show that the psychological factors that lay at the heart of Angell’s case were in fact functional for the efficient working of capitalism. The delusions in the minds of people as exposed by Angell were not part of the economic structure of capitalist society. If those delusions did not exist, however, “the governing classes in a capitalist society would certainly find it difficult to obtain the support of the masses for war or for the policies which end in war” (Brinton ed. 1935, 23). Capitalists thus exploited the psychological factors for their own ends. This leads us to Laski’s contribution, which stressed the role of the state in such exploitation. Laski’s contribution to the debate was significant in that he drew attention to the importance of sovereignty with regard to the problem at issue. As was discussed in chapter 5, Laski had developed a dual description of the state, which Woolf subsequently criticized. The implications of that dual description are evident in Laski’s brief contribution to the debate. Laski’s letter made two interrelated points. First, the sovereign state is used by capitalists, and second, as he had argued in “The Economic Foundations of Peace,” capital was able to invoke irrational emotions. Capitalists were able to bring about this result, he now stressed, because of their relation as capitalists to the sovereign state. Capital, he argued, “uses the technique of the sovereign State to protect its interests in the markets it finds” (Brinton ed. 1935, 41). Laski did not dispute Angell’s argument that an economic system based on justice and reason would reap greater benefits than one with no concern for those principles; but he questioned whether the examples offered by Angell “affect the fact that capitalists whose interests are at stake do not agree with him; or that, granted the class-relations of this society, they can use the power of the State to further the purposes they are promoting” (Brinton ed. 1935, 42). He agreed that in the long run this use of the state would recoil against capital, but stressed that capitalists were less interested than Angell in the long term. “For,” he concluded, “it is really important that, while he is a philosopher, they are capitalists” (Brinton ed. 1935, 42).

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Laski’s contribution is now, of course, quite outdated. Since the 1940s states have more than ever relied on and faced structural power, rather than crude imperialism. States that call upon and use power derived from the structures of production, finance, security, and knowledge are able to manipulate the international economy (Strange 1994, esp. ch. 2). Nevertheless, post-War change in the international environment has not blunted the significance of Laski’s intertwined theories (a) that the nominally sovereign state continues to be used as a means of organizing society for particular purposes—structural power now achieves this more subtly—and (b) that economic democracy is required for social organization to be built upon the basis of reason and justice. The Approach of War It was from his view that reason and justice were undermined in the existing order that Laski reflected on the prospects for freedom during the period of international insecurity in the 1930s. Insecurity had, he argued in the second edition of Liberty in the Modern State, always been responsible for “those fears and hates which are incompatible with freedom.” Freedom depended upon an atmosphere of tolerance, which in turn required an absence of angry passion that prevents people from engaging in rational argument. “There is tolerance,” he suggested, “only where there is room for, willingness to admit, the prospect of compromise through rational discussion” (1937a, 17). The period since the “bad Peace Treaty” at the end of the First World War was, he went on, hardly the atmosphere for tolerance and rational discussion. But, he stressed, it was not war itself that was ultimately the cause of the insecurity; the cause was, rather, the “international anarchy,” which was itself, “rooted in competing economic systems driven by their inner logic to obtain by war objectives they could not reach, or could not reach rapidly enough, by peaceful means” (1937a, 18). In The State in Theory and Practice Laski had noted (1935a, 223–7) an increasing tendency to regard the rules of the international community as supreme, having primacy over the laws of states. Failure in the administration of international law was judged to be the result of poorly organized international sanctions, rather than of international law itself. Although Laski, as we have seen, campaigned for the civitas maxima, for him this was an optative tendency that overestimated the capabilities of an international community composed of nation-states, which were ultimately reluctant to relinquish their claims to sovereignty. If a state did surrender its sovereignty “it would be subject to rules; and, so long as it observed them, it would not

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be able to make the might at its disposal the measure of the right it may seek to enforce” (1935a, 235). The League’s failures stemmed from the belief in sovereignty, which hampered agreement in the field of disarmament. “For,” he elaborated, once we grant that war is the ultimate arbiter of international destiny, it follows quite logically that each state can agree only to such limitation as is, in its judgement, compatible with its highest self-interest; and since it is the ultimate guardian of that self-interest, the limitation it can accept will be only that which leaves it the full assurance of victory in the field. (1935a, 221–2) Writing his introduction to the second edition of Liberty in the Modern State, Laski reflected upon the League’s failure to fulfill the role that had been expected of it after the Armistice. The aggressive policies of Japan and Italy had convinced him that there was now little confidence amongst the world’s powers that the Covenant of the League provided realistic, serious protection. He elaborated as follows: “Manchuria in 1931, Abyssinia in 1935, have shown only too plainly that those do not accept its premises who were most loud in proclaiming that they inaugurated a new epoch for mankind” (1937a, 16). He had come to believe that the League could never be an adequate organization for the pursuit of world peace. Laski was not alone on the British Left in seeing Japanese and Italian imperialism as symptoms of the League’s incompetence. In a book that Laski would review, the communist intellectual Dutt considered that, as a result of the aggression on the part of those countries: “All the questions of the future of world organisation, of war or peace, of international political relations, are thrown into the melting pot” (1936, 26). Dutt described international law as a “bloody caricature” that merely codified existing practices of intercourse and law between nations. Moreover, even such codification was “without validity save by the will of the sovereign participants, and impotent before all major conflicts” (1936, 26). Hence, any proclamation of the necessity of a world state to replace the existing order would be utopian unless it overcame the forces of imperialism. Dutt recognized that the resurgence of imperialism and rise of fascism would be likely to lead to world war. He refused, however, to accept that this would be an inevitable consequence. Talk of inevitability, in fact, would only hasten the approach to war. If, alternatively, war were to be prevented, the rising revolutionary forces would gain the time to prepare for the elimination of imperialism and the creation of a new form of world organization.

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He drew (1936, 333–4) an interesting distinction between the old, established capitalist states and the expansionary ones wherein fascism had been adopted. Against the challenging fascist powers the old powers had more to lose by war and were, moreover, less well prepared. The “contradictions” in the imperialist camp might be utilized to help block the advance of war. According to Dutt (1936, 335–40), the Soviet Union and the Communist International were important pillars in the movement for peace, providing the example of and opportunities for the rise of workers’ power. Hence, it might be possible to “build up a collective peace front, consisting of the Soviet Union, the smaller States and those imperialist States which seek to delay immediate war, sufficiently powerful to hold in check the Fascist war offensive” (1936, 341). The fascist dictatorships would not, he predicted, attempt to risk aggression against such an array of forces. In his review of Dutt’s book Laski (1936i) offered two main reasons why he was far less optimistic about the prevention of war. One reason was that, although an Anglo-Soviet pact would be an urgent necessity, the requisite forcefulness and unity of British working-class pressure would not be forthcoming. It is, however, the second reason in which the real strength of Laski’s critique lies. This concerned the attitudes of statesmen in the capitalist states. He accepted that many statesmen recognized that world federation would be the price of preventing world war. Many, however, who would consider this too high a price to pay, believed that war could be bought off: That explains our acquiescence in the Italian annexation of Abyssinia; we do not like it, but we prefer it to war. That explains our acquiescence in the rearmament of Germany. Many of our statesmen believe, again in my judgement wrongly, that the realisation of Hitler’s ideals at the expense of Eastern gains can be accomplished without cost to the British Empire. (1936i, 42) As we have seen, Laski believed that, if it would meet with coercion or propaganda any serious challenge to capitalist interests, the sovereign state would not only block the democratic path to freedom within the state but also prevent the construction of an international society in which freedom might flourish. As the reason and tolerance that were so important to freedom were undermined by the principle of sovereignty, sovereignty would somehow have to be overcome. He was soon to envisage a way out of this dilemma: at the outbreak of the Second World War he began to wonder (1943a, 247) whether, just as the sense of unity at home might lead to revolution by consent, international cooperation amongst Hitler’s enemies might help usher in a new world order.

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Before turning to Laski’s thought on international relations during the War, it is useful once again to compare and contrast his ideas of the 1930s with those published by Carr in The Twenty Years’ Crisis as peace slipped away at the end of that decade. For Carr, an important point was that (2001, 29–30) the world’s states differed widely in size, power, and political, economic, and cultural development. Hence, a system of standardization among them would present great complications. Being the first large-scale attempt to rationally institute such a system the League of Nations was particularly liable to such complications. Attempts to use what some critics had metaphorically likened to a card index of solutions to be applied to situations were doomed to failure. This did not, however, mean that he was skeptical of the possibility of any change to the existing world order. In his concluding chapter Carr confidently predicted that sovereignty, which had never been more than a convenient label to describe the independent character of modern states, would become a concept more blurred and indistinct than it was at present. “The effective group unit of the future will,” he argued, “in all probability not be the unit formally recognised as such by international law” (2001, 213). He insisted, nevertheless, that political power would continue to be exercised by group units of some form. This did not rule out lasting world peace at some time in the future, as elements of morality and consent could be detected in world politics. Crucially, however, a new international order and international harmony would need to be built “on the basis of an ascendancy which is generally accepted as tolerant and unoppressive or, at any rate, as preferable to any practicable alternative” (2001, 217). It was the moral task of the ascendant power or powers to create such conditions. Carr was thus very much a dialectical thinker who believed that the new world order was immanent within the existing one, yet not guaranteed to arise from it (see Linklater 2000). His hope lay in widespread support for socialist planning, the appeal of which he had seen grow during the decade (Rich 2000, 202). Carr and Laski, as we have seen in this chapter, each believed that international relations might take a form that did not revolve around a competitive system of political units. Each criticized the attempt by the League of Nations to build a new world order; nevertheless they differed in that Laski was adamant that this must involve a clean break with, rather than a revision of the existing system of sovereign states. At the end of the 1930s one thing more than any other substantiated the warning of both thinkers. At the very time that Carr’s book was going to press, the outbreak of war dramatically confirmed the League’s impotence. As will be discussed in chapter 7, during the War Carr’s later work would have a considerable impact upon that of Laski.

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CHAPTER 7

Problems of International Politics: War and the Post-War Order

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hen, 20 years after the Armistice, the world descended once again into world war, Laski began to experience a period of unprecedented international turmoil and uncertainty. This phase, during which his worst fears and most optimistic international ideas seemed alternately to be on the brink of realization, would continue until his death in 1950. After the break down of what had always been a fragile peace, he and many others in the Labour Party had begun to speculate not only about the prospects of overcoming the threat of fascist domination, but also of building a new, egalitarian world order. When victory eventually came in 1945 Laski urged his socialist colleagues to recognize this as a unique opportunity to achieve his elusive goal of revolution by consent. He would, of course, be disappointed by the turn of events. World war was rapidly followed by Cold War. As he put it gloomily in the opening sentence of a lengthy, unfinished manuscript: “The years after the cessation of hostilities with victory have not brought us peace; rather, on the contrary, they have made us aware how long and hard the road is which separates us from its realisation” (1952, 13). As he experienced and surveyed the international upheavals of the 1940s—a decade that would end so unsatisfactorily—Laski revived several prominent ideas of his earlier political thought. In particular the themes of freedom, rights, democracy, and sovereignty were reintroduced in the context of the global problems and opportunities that emerged during these volatile times. His peculiar conception of freedom, for instance, became hugely

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relevant at a time when Franklin D. Roosevelt was outlining ambitious aspirations for a post-War world in which four freedoms would, the president hoped, flourish in every continent. Moreover, as the newly formed United Nations Organization sought after the War to identify the rights that should be held universally, Laski’s socialist, democratic theory of rights contributed influentially to the international debates regarding the nature, promotion, and protection of human rights. Before turning to his cosmopolitan thought on such issues as freedom and rights, this chapter begins with a discussion of the ideas that Laski put forward during the period for the replacement of the established but decaying global order. For Laski, what was needed was a new international system wherein state sovereignty would have no place. International Government Laski’s critique of both the theory and practice of state sovereignty assumed renewed significance as the world slid toward war at the end of the 1930s. Sustained efforts such as those of his fellow Labour Party intellectual Philip Noel-Baker to achieve peace through international law had been dashed. Along with Woolf, Noel-Baker spent the inter-War period campaigning tirelessly for, and subsequently promoting, the Optional Clause of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The goal of international jurisdiction proved, however, to be elusive. Noel-Baker and his colleagues found that sovereign states would not ultimately cooperate with one another in observance of the international lawmaking body (Lloyd 1995). Hence, Laski’s fears that the world crisis would almost inevitably lead to war seemed after all to be justified. As the dire world situation grew still grimmer early in 1939, Laski reflected on the assumptions on which the actual international codes of jurisdiction were founded. In a lecture he delivered at the University of Washington he outlined his thoughts on the matter in forthright terms, suggesting that the historic principle of Anglo-American government amounted basically to the adage: “what touches all must be decided by all” (1939a, 49). Having, since his arrival on the intellectual scene as a pluralist thinker, been concerned with the appropriate geographical and functional levels of government, he had sought since the 1920s to apply that concern to the international level of politics. He now argued that what he called the “unity of interdependence in the international sphere” could be perceived in terms of the belief expressed in the historic principle. “If,” he suggested, there is this unity of interdependence, if common problems are a matter of common determination and decision, obviously enough the right of

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the nation to isolate the determination of its policies is a right that is not compatible with this unity and common interest, for at its supreme height such determination may mean war for the world. (1939a, 49) The modern nation-state was thus incompatible with the system of relations that would, in the event that the principle be realized, comprise the international political order. Hence, he stressed, “in the kind of world to which we belong the sovereignty of the state on the plane of international relationships is no longer an admissible principle” (1939a, 49). The demand that “what touches all must be decided by all” had in fact served as a principle of the unity of interdependence for far longer, and more widely, than Laski acknowledged. It was not only a historic principle of American federalism and English regional authority, but also one that had been expressed by amongst others Aristotle and Aquinas in terms of subsidiarity. In Laski’s own time the doctrine of subsidiarity had, moreover, been revived in the papal encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno” of 1931 (see Neunreither 1993, 207). Furthermore, more than 40 years after Laski’s death the idea of subsidiarity was revived in the 1990s in an attempt to identify the appropriate realms of activity for the European Union, the constituent states of the Union, their regions, and other units of government. The papal encyclical of 1931 was, of course expressed from a virulently antisocialist perspective, and Laski was highly critical of the opposition of the papacy to social change. He indeed condemned (1944b, 115–18) the willingness of the papacy to on the one hand tolerate Mussolini and Hitler with only halfhearted protest, whilst on the other hand condemn the Soviet Union furiously. Nevertheless, one can see that Laski’s own critique of sovereignty might be placed among many in a matrix of ideas that both preceded his own political philosophy and continues to surface in contemporary discussion. The state neither had been, nor ever would be, the unquestioned or natural unit of authority (see Murphy 1996). Laski maintained his critique when, upon his return to England in 1939 after delivering his series of lectures at Seattle, he began to offer to his political colleagues his thoughts on sovereignty and international government. In September that year, in his search for a solution to the unyielding international problems that had mushroomed since the Armistice, he submitted a draft proposal to the Labour Party for consideration in the event that peace might somehow be preserved. In this unpublished document he advocated the pooling of the sovereignties of the European states, with the aim of international cooperation with other interested states. Without the abolition of the principle of national sovereignty, he argued, “no disarmament is real

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disarmament; no collective security is real collective security; no solutions of the problems of economic nationalism (tariffs, subsidies, hindrances to emigration, currency, equal labour standards etc.) become possible” (LP Manchester, LP/LAS/38/2 and LP/LAS/38/3/2). In his endeavors to remedy this situation he proposed in the draft that a union of European states should maintain democratic government; guarantee essential civil liberties; pool their defense forces; adopt a common currency and customs union; and nationalize the vital instruments of production. Laski’s proposal to his party was in fact rather weak as a plan for the solution to the problem of state sovereignty in an interdependent world. The points he outlined amounted to a Euro-centric scheme in which sovereignty would merely be transferred to a central European body that would need to operate in the wider, global environment. The plan failed, moreover, to address his long-held and major concern with class interests and power, to which he referred in the draft. The frustration of the League had, he noted, reflected the outworn principle of national sovereignty that upheld and was directed by those with vested economic interests in capitalist society. Why, then, was he concerned at this time to draft plans for international government that were unattainable in the existing economic circumstances? That is a question to which we return shortly. First, though, it is useful to consider Laski’s efforts as part of a broader internationalist movement within the Labour Party. In December 1939, when the hopes of Laski and his Labour Party colleagues for the avoidance of war had finally been sunk, Woolf and Noel-Baker each insisted that there was still much to learn from the failure of the League to fulfill its purposes. Woolf stressed in his pamphlet International Government (1940 [1939], 112–13) that the problem of international government and organization would not be difficult if only states would discontinue their claims first to sovereignty and independence, and second to the right to act without reference to other states and governments. If it became possible after the War to reconstruct international institutions, he argued (1940, 113–14), attention should be paid to six essentials with which the League had attempted to deal: (1) states must be regulated by recognized and accepted rules; (2) there must be an international organ with a regular method for making those rules or laws; (3) an international court should be in place to settle disputes over the rules or laws; (4) international machinery must deal peacefully with necessary changes in the relations between states; (5) international administrative organs should pursue cooperatively the common interests of society and nations in such fields as transport, communications, trade, health, and labor; (6) force and violence

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should be prevented by means of international control of power and armaments, and provision for action against any state that resorts to war. Although the League had attempted to deal with the six essentials, Woolf conceded, the retention of sovereignty as a central principle had rendered the rule of international law impossible. Now, one option in response to this problem would be to press for a world federation; but Woolf recognized that national and international psychology would make this an unrealistic option in the short term. He therefore advocated (1940, 117–19) a new League within the framework of which smaller federations would be promoted. If the six essentials were to become operative, however, this would require the sovereignty of states to be drastically limited; states would have to accept the decisions of the international organs. Woolf ’s conclusion was (1940, 120) that the League had failed to work as a system of collective security not because it was actually unworkable, but because governments had never attempted, or indeed wished, to make it work. To understand his position more fully it is useful to note that in 1939, although he was not himself a Marxist, he borrowed frequently in his book Barbarians at the Gate (1939) Marx’s slogan that the freedom of each is the condition of the freedom of all. The economic barbarism of capitalist countries and political barbarism of the Soviet Union made the community in which such freedom might be realized “an illusion and a sham” (1939, 219). It was, hence, not enough to oppose Hitler and Mussolini; a far more fundamental task was to face-up to the barbarism within the allied countries of which fascism was a symptom. The aim was to overcome the worst traits of the capitalist countries on one hand and the Soviet Union on the other. Basically, he was appealing to ordinary people and their politicians and statesmen to act according to the political and economic principles of civilization, and thus to reject the barbarism that had undermined the efforts of the League. Now, returning to Laski, he believed that an appeal to statesmen to see reason and allow civilization to take priority over self-interest depended upon the abandonment of the present economic order. Hence, he and Woolf approached the problem of civilization from opposing directions. As discussed in chapter 6, Laski had stressed throughout the 1930s that the governments of modern states would resist the efforts of cosmopolitans to persuade them to give up their sovereignty. They would resist because sovereignty enabled states to perform the role of protecting and promoting their economies on the world stage. State sovereignty served, moreover, not only to facilitate, but also legitimate this role. Reflecting on this point one can begin to understand Laski’s rather clumsy inference, criticized as we saw in

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chapter 5 by Woolf in 1935, that the sovereign state could be described as a method of organization. The significance of Laski’s interpretation of the state as such is that it enables us to see that, by 1939, Woolf was advocating an attempt to solve the global crisis without investigating thoroughly the purposes for which the state was brought into play. The other leading Labour internationalist, Noel-Baker, presented a distinctive contribution to the debate in 1939 upon the future of world governance. Nevertheless, he, like Woolf, neglected the economic interests and power that lay in the path of attempts to build an order in which state sovereignty would diminish. Noel-Baker, as a member of the Labour Party executive, insisted that previous difficulties should not lead internationalists to concede defeat or abandon hope that nation-states might exist peacefully and in cooperation. “Our world is becoming very small; we live in a society of nations,” he stressed—“we must organise it if we want ordered peace” (1940 [1939], 122). Reflecting on the inter-War attempt to institutionalize such a society, Noel-Baker argued that when they were actually used the League and the Covenant had never really failed: “The fault lay, not in the tables of the law but in the fact that the commandments of the law were not observed” (1940, 123). The things that would ensure a real and lasting peace to be achieved could be perceived as four pillars of the long-overdue new world order. These were: “The rule of law; a general treaty of armament reduction; collective resistance to the criminal who starts a war; joint economic action among nations to end the senseless waste and hunger which our present system now involves” (1940, 125). Those four pillars could only be erected, according to Noel-Baker, if Britain provided the driving force for the project. The reason why this would be so crucial was that the British people were committed to the struggle for democracy—democracy meaning that the will of the people shall prevail. Laski’s ideas on the future of international government coincided with those of Noel-Baker in so far as they each considered that the movement toward the goal of worldwide democracy might begin in and be driven from Britain. For Laski, however, it was not enough to hope that the commandments of international law would be observed by rationally governed states. As we have seen, he believed that a fundamental socioeconomic transformation was the condition of success. Why, then, had he proposed to his party in 1939 a scheme that would depend on the diminishment of sovereignty— something that seemed so unlikely in the face of the opposition of the dominant economic interests? The answer can be found if one recalls his rather undeveloped theory of revolution by consent. A social revolution might, he

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hoped, begin with the efforts of the British people to persuade the privileged that substantial democracy and equality could not be averted indefinitely. Laski had for many years speculated that revolution might be achieved with the consent of both the presently dominant class and the state that was used by that class to defend its interests. His hope was that the opposition to social change would be abandoned if it were realized that capitalism was a spent force. It would thus become clear that the best option for the vested interests would be to cooperate rather than to lose everything or abandon constitutional government in the violent transformation to which Laski was opposed. His proposal to his party shortly before the outbreak of war of a scheme for international government was made from this perspective. Once war had begun, Laski saw that this represented both a setback and potential opportunity for revolution by consent. Such a revolution could be achieved only in the event that Hitler was defeated. As Laski stressed early in 1940, in his paper “Is this an Imperialist War,” this was not an imperialist war in the sense of that of 1914–18. Perhaps influenced by Dutt’s analysis, which, as we saw in chapter 6, he had reviewed several years earlier, he argued that this time the war was between contracting imperialist powers on the one hand and expanding, fascist ones on the other. “An expanding imperialism” was “bound to halt, a contracting imperialism is ever less able to halt, the progress of socialism within the society it controls” (1940i, 26). British imperialism, furthermore, had been based on the export of capital and the industrialization of colonies, thus making possible in those colonies “the growth of the economic and political consciousness of which emancipation is the probable outcome” (1940i, 23). Fascist imperialism was very different in that it sought to exploit its conquered territories purely as a source of resources, and thus without industrialization and its consequences. Victory over Hitler would not only, moreover, liberate German workers from tyranny, but also free British workers from the bonds of capitalism. Thus to liberate the British worker would be “the most direct road to transforming British imperialism into the Socialist ideal of a Fellowship of Free Peoples” (1940i, 33). The ends for which the War was being fought, Laski argued the following year, in a piece entitled “The Need for a European Revolution,” involved “the need to reorganise the foundations of our social order” (1941b, 5). Opponents of change would have to recognize that the only alternative would be to enter a period in which change would be prevented by the strategy of barbarism. As he put it: The central problem for our rulers is that they should understand in time that we have reached an epoch certain to be as decisive in its results as that

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which saw the fall of Rome, or that which, with the Reformation, witnessed the rise of the middle class to power. We have now to plan the economic and social foundations of our life in the interest of the whole community, or to relapse into a new dark age in which the outlaws everywhere will rule us. (1941b, 8–9) In any event, the revolution that was opposed in some quarters would in the long run be unavoidable. The only questions were “whether its birth-pangs can be abridged and its purpose made beneficent” (1941b, 33). He conceded that he could not be sure whether the social conflict he dreaded would be one in which the popular forces would be successful. If they were defeated a fascist society would be the result; even if they were successful, moreover, a period would follow in which democratic institutions would need to be suspended, with the grim and heavy price for society that this would entail. Hence, he appealed to the privileged classes to accept the alternative of a program of radical social change, involving the peaceful “readjustment of the relations of production,” calling “neither for the proscription of persons nor the expropriation of property” (1941b, 31). Laski thus recognized the gravity of the problems facing his strategy of revolution by consent, and warned that the alternative was the social conflict that would be unpalatable to all but those who found fascism acceptable. These nonutopian elements of his thought are significant in that they help substantiate recent doubts (see Ashworth 2002) whether the perception of a realist–idealist debate overlooks the real divisions in the 1940s among thinkers traditionally categorized together as idealists. Laski was only too aware of the power politics that had undermined the League. Whilst he called for the privileged classes and their political allies to accept fundamental but peaceful social change, he knew that there was no guarantee that his call would be accepted. His ideas thus straddled the apparent idealist–realist debate of that decade. Laski’s approach was summed up most directly and clearly in his book Where Do We Go from Here? (1940b) in 1940. The defeat by the fascist powers of the smaller democracies was proof that state sovereignty could not realistically serve as the central principle of the League. The vested interests of the powerful would, at any critical moment, triumph over collective interests. The enthusiasts for the League had, moreover, thus been wrong to infer that “had statesmen in Geneva only displayed a little more fidelity to the idea of the League, shown a little more goodwill on its behalf, it would not have broken down” (1940b, 43). The enthusiasts had overlooked two crucial points. The first was that their idea of the role of the League was contradicted

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by the idea of a sovereign state—sovereignty after all meant that the state could not be bound to observe rules of conduct against its will. Second, only the powerful states possessed effectively the attributes denoted by the term “sovereignty.” Crucially, the powerful states “refused to surrender that sovereignty because its retention was essential to the protection of what they regarded as their vital interests” (1940b, 43). Those interests were economic ones, interference with which would involve a change to the distribution of economic power within the state. In view of Laski’s critique of sovereignty, one must bear in mind his hope for revolution by consent in order to understand his discussion in Where Do We Go from Here? of the form of international government to be constructed upon the defeat of Hitler and his allies. Laski set out proposals similar to those he had drafted for the Labour Party shortly before the outbreak of war. Whilst he once again advocated (1940b, 123–5) the pooling of sovereignties, he now stressed more clearly that this must be done on a socialist basis. Industry would be socialized, economic power would be organized on the basis of common interest, and the problems of inequality would be addressed. He was, however, still uncertain as to how international relations should be organized: Whether the form of organisation involved would seek world-wide expression, as in the League of Nations, or whether it should attempt the more modest form of a series of regional systems of states closely linked by territorial contiguity, or whether the second may best be built within the framework of the first, I do not pretend to decide. (1940b, 125) What was nevertheless clear, in his view, was that the complexity of any future form of world government would be far greater than had been imagined in the days of the League. There are, he elaborated, “some functions which will require territorial organs operating over a special and relatively narrow area, while others will require ad hoc bodies whose power of decision controls all activities universally within the area with which it is concerned” (1940b, 125). However, the solution to this international problem evaded him. By the time that Laski aired his views in Where Do We Go from Here? another thinker based in Britain had begun to explore more extensively the possibilities of international functional organization. This was David Mitrany (see Ashworth 1999, 77–8; Anderson 1998, 579–90). As is discussed shortly, Mitrany developed into a coherent doctrine functionalist ideas not unlike those that Laski had begun tentatively to adapt in his international theory.

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As he continued to strive for the elusive international solution Laski arrived at the view that a structure of federal systems would be unsatisfactory. In his book Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time of 1943 he offered three broad reasons why this would be the case. These were first, the unsuitability of federalism in the absence of strong, conducive historical traditions; second, the problems of reconciling cultural nationalisms; and third, the likelihood of each of several federations being concerned only with the prosperity of their own citizens—a problem that might involve the danger of federations adopting autarchy. What, in his view, was necessary was the “partial correlation of functions” (1943a, 234). Not unlike the later ideas of Held (1993, 39–41), he proposed (1943a, 234–9) a worldwide society of nations that, while being governed by an international executive, legislature, judiciary, and civil service, would decide upon the unit of governance and administration for each particular function on the basis of its peculiarities. In some cases, such as transport and the electricity supply, the nature of the function would mean that a unit of governance as large as Europe would be appropriate. In other cases, such as aviation and currency, a worldwide unit would be more appropriate. Furthermore, functions such as education, the medical service, and wireless would probably require units of governance no wider than the national state. Two other special functions that required large-scale effort by the society of nations were those of development of the poorer countries and the liquidation of political and economic imperialism. There would, he stressed (1943a, 221), be an international functional body to supervise each general category of technical decision. The functions thus involved would include the allocation of raw materials, the planning of communications and the organization of stable prices for primary commodities, and dealing with crises and the problems of the so-called backward areas of the world. The problem was that imperialist exploitation paid dividends to those with vested interests—especially when imperialism was backed up by a major power. Hence, the other, inseparable side of planning would be “an internal change in the productive relations of each society” (1943a, 220). For Laski, the functions of the new world order thus required a favorable environment. Hence, his concern in Reflections was “less the description of a possible pattern of international government than the analysis of the central conditions without which, as I think, the idea of international government is no more than a conceptual toy with which men may play” (1943a, 250). For international government to be effective in the way he envisaged there would need to be an economics of plenty and crucially the use of the favorable moment to begin the process of organization. The problem was not the discovery of common ends but, rather, the need to face a world in which “at

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every step, the methods those ends require are in conflict with powerful vested interests which do not easily consent to abdicate” (1943a, 247). In order to appreciate fully the points that he sought to convey in Reflections, one should note that in the preface (1943a, 7) Laski acknowledged the influence of Carr’s wartime work Conditions of Peace. Carr saw the problems facing the world in the 1940s in terms of three crises: “the crisis of democracy, the crisis of national self-determination, and the economic crisis” (1942, 13). Published the year before Laski’s Reflections, Carr’s book was based upon its author’s view that the War was a part of a revolution that had begun in the First World War. This revolution was being waged against “the three predominant ideas of the nineteenth century: liberal democracy, national self-determination and laissez-faire economics” (1942, 10–11). Like Carr, Laski believed that the revolution of their time was partly one of the needs to overcome the problems of national self-determination. As we have seen in this chapter, Laski continued to develop his critique of state sovereignty and explore the prospects for international democratic governance. He had also, as we saw in chapter 3, become extremely critical of liberal democracy by the 1930s—democracy was in crisis due to the limitations imposed by the requirements of capitalism. Even Roosevelt’s attempts to reform capitalism with the introduction of state planning had come under attack from the defenders of laissez-faire. If Carr and Laski shared similar beliefs regarding the problems of international relations, there were also affinities between their ideas for the solution. Carr (1942, 164) described federalism as a doctrine that betrayed the naïve arrogance of its sponsors. Federalism, for him, oversimplified the problem. His proposed solution indicates that he had begun to move away from the view that a world of state-like units was unavoidable. Three years later, in the preface to a new edition of The Twenty Years’ Crisis, he conceded that he had in the first edition too readily accepted that the world would be one of nation-states, even though in the final chapter he had mentioned briefly that new units might take the place of such states. In the new preface he offered the stronger statement: “ . . . no workable international organization can be built on a membership of a multiplicity of nation-states” (2001, cvi). In Conditions of Peace, which seems to have been a significant step between the first and second editions of his more famous volume, he called (1942, 62–4) on the one hand for larger units for military and economic purposes, and on the other hand for devolution of power to smaller groups. Hence, within a broader framework there would be numerous units with regard to other functions. Some functions would be governed and administered on a national basis and some on units still smaller. As he put in

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words reminiscent of those that Laski had offered more than two decades earlier: “Indeed, it can be plausibly argued that healthy social life can exist only where there is some intertwined network of loyalties and interests, and where no one institution—whether state, church or trade union—makes an all-embracing demand on the allegiance of its members in every field of their activities” (1942, 64). If the ideas of Carr and Laski had thus come to converge regarding international organization, Laski’s view that the way forward in international government would need in part to focus on functions bore distinct similarities to Mitrany’s internationalism. Mitrany, who was the most prominent functionalist thinker in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s (see Anderson 1998, 580), was on friendly terms with Laski during those decades (see Ashworth 1999, 83). In developing his functional approach Mitrany was probably influenced by a range of thinkers—Laski, Cole, Hobhouse, Tawney, and the novelist H.G. Wells—each of whom equated function with social purpose. Laski’s influence came in no small part from his application of the idea of function to international theory (Ashworth 1999, 40–1). In the 1950s Mitrany specifically mentioned Laski as one of the thinkers who had been most influential (see Navari 1995, 218–19). The English pluralist doctrine was indeed a major influence upon the functional approach with which Mitrany came to be associated in the 1940s and 1950s, even though Mitrany was less enamored with the socialism that helped characterize Laski’s pluralism. Basically, Mitrany argued that governments and political processes should be analyzed in terms of their performance of social functions. On this basis he perceived correlations between intense nationalism and social, economic, and political underdevelopment. States needed to interact in modern civilization in order to meet their shared needs and develop in concert (Navari 1995, 216–21). Like Laski and Carr, Mitrany was critical during the Second World War of federalist arguments for international reform. Federal schemes would attempt to bring together into a whole, units that were not always compatible, and in the long run this would be exposed. Moreover, in federations the urgent changes that were required in international relations would face resistance to change, as factions opposed to federal initiatives would be likely to appeal to the constitution. For him, a more effective strategy would be to build a network of functional units (Anderson 1998, 580; Ashworth 1999, 90–1). He had since the early 1930s developed the belief that the solution to international problems would be to implement functional organization on a global scale. Plurality and social diversity would be harnessed to international organization (Navari 1995, 231).

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What particularly concerned Mitrany with regard to socialism was large-scale planning at the state level. National planning, for him, increased the possibility of conflict. Like Laski and other socialists, Mitrany supported economic planning as a means to meeting needs. Indeed, need was the driving force of Mitrany’s functional approach. Nevertheless, it was the problem of national planning that underpinned his argument that functional organization should be based on function-specific bodies on an international basis. Planning would take place within each function (Ashworth 1999, 86–95). Perhaps the most significant division between Laski and Mitrany concerned the likelihood of success for the new functional world order in the existing socioeconomic conditions. As we have seen, Laski’s position was that fundamental economic reform was necessary within states before the construction of the new international order. Otherwise, the vested interests would ensure that the instrument of sovereignty would operate for their protection. To appreciate the similarity and difference between the two thinkers one might recall from chapter 2 that Laski criticized federalism directly in 1939. Of great concern to him were the problems faced by Roosevelt in attempting to implement the New Deal. As was discussed in chapter 2, by 1948, in The American Democracy, Laski had concluded that the New Deal left little permanent impact upon American capitalism. Now, in 1948 Mitrany offered his own views on federalism, noting the way in which it had impeded reform in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Turning specifically to the United States, in his view “the sin of unconstitutionality” had “plagued efforts at social reform . . . and killed or maimed most of the original New Deal measures” (1948, 352). Bearing this in mind he argued that an international federation would be tightly restricted and would not be conducive to reform. Every amendment, he opined, “would have to pass the gauntlet of jealous discussions between countries which have newly come together and differ in their political background” (1948, 353). Divisive issues would be avoided and slow countries would dictate the pace of important changes. Nevertheless, he did believe (1948, 354–5) that the New Deal had achieved great success, notably with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This, however, was the result of cooperation in functional arrangements that did not require constitutional revision. In fact, he argued (1948, 355), it had been easier to achieve the functional arrangements with Canada and Mexico for the Alcan Highway and Rio Grande project respectively than the TVA scheme. Those international arrangements had, he argued, involved the pooling of sovereignty for specific functional purposes. He considered that international functional arrangements represented the way forward for planning. Countries whose ideological,

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cultural, and other differences would preclude successful federalism could undertake functional organization. Of course, the problems of instituting an international system of government in practice would be immense, especially if government at the different levels aimed to be genuinely accountable to the citizens affected. The wider the level of government, the more scope there would have to be for delegated authority and bureaucratic administration, which would be likely to decrease democratic accountability (Dahl 1970, 88–98). Mitrany believed that the functional approach would overcome such problems. First, people would, in democratic functional arrangements, vote for representatives who would be concerned with particular functions. Furthermore, those elected to take control of functions would have particular expertise and would thus work effectively and efficiently (Ashworth 1999, 92–3). In the case of politics within states Laski had for long (see 1935c) been concerned by the likelihood that, in the absence of democratic accountability, delegated authority might serve to consolidate existing power. As we have seen in this section, in the case of the international sphere, he feared that the functional approach could not be fully and democratically effective given the dominance of the existing economic power. He held out hope that the War might bring about a fundamental change in the entire international system. Nevertheless, that change would have to be initiated within individual countries. Whilst Mitrany maintained his faith in a pragmatic approach for more than two decades after Laski’s death (see Mitrany 1971, 537–43) we have seen that Laski considered revolutionary change to be vital. That change, Laski had come by the 1940s to believe (1943a, 241–51), was just possible. Wartime unity amongst the allied states offered a temporary opportunity for statesmen to accept rationally that the capitalist system, which dominated the existing international system, was in terminal decline. He was well aware, however, that the democratic organization needed for effective, accountable, international government was opposed by counterrevolutionary force. Hitler’s regime had been enlisted in such a counterrevolution, which was bound to be antidemocratic. “For,” he stressed, “the purpose of democracy is to enlarge the number of those who share in the benefits of available welfare by enlarging the number of those to whom the rulers of society are responsible” (1943a, 253). He shared the view of Carr that the existing liberal democracy was inadequate to the task of fulfilling that purpose. In the belief that there was a fleeting opportunity for radical change, Laski continued until the end of the War to press his party to campaign for a revolutionary transformation that would be conceded by the capitalist class as the only realistic future. In the wider international environment he not

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only appealed to European states to pool their sovereignty, but also considered the Roosevelt administration to be sufficiently progressive as to constitute the foundation for U.S. foreign policy that would pursue the world order he sought. This was evident when in December 1944, due to the illness of the Labour Party chairwoman Ellen Wilkinson, Vice Chairman Laski presided over the party’s annual conference. In his address he looked ahead to the “new historical epoch” that, he hoped, victory would bring. As an “economics of plenty” would be incompatible with the private ownership or control of the means of production it would, he stressed, be vital in this new epoch “to renew the foundations of our society.” A society dominated by “the passion for private acquisition” would, indeed, be incompatible with the wellbeing of the community and “at war with all that is implied in the Four Freedoms” (Labour Party 1944, 110). Laski thus associated his political thought of the period with the foreign policy aims expressed by the American president. For Laski, however, the freedoms could only be realized in conjunction with the peaceful revolution he sought. The Four Freedoms Laski referred to the “Four Freedoms” frequently in the 1940s. The freedoms had been a major theme in F.D. Roosevelt’s presidential address to the U.S. Congress in 1941. Looking forward to victory the president called for a new world order of cooperation between free countries, the foundations of which would be freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—each of which would be applicable throughout the world. The influence of Roosevelt’s message upon Laski and the Labour Party was immense, as can be discerned from its inclusion in full at the end of the party’s report entitled The Old World and the New Society (Labour Party 1942). The report, which was drafted anonymously by Laski, enjoyed a huge impact upon the thinking of the party. Indeed, Morgan Phillips, who was the Labour Party general secretary at the time, would later claim, “Laski’s prolific mind was the moving spirit behind the production of this statement of policy which laid down the lines of further statements and paved the way for their eventual fulfilment after 1945” (1950, 42). What is significant here is that the report made the Four Freedoms the basis of its discussion of the problems of both war and peacetime reconstruction (Labour Party 1942, esp. 4–5, 12–13, and 29). As a doctrine of freedom, Roosevelt’s presidential address was far richer than that offered by Angell, who, drawing upon nineteenth-century English liberalism, stressed (1940) in 1940 that political and intellectual freedom

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were the freedoms that were in most urgent need of defense. Only by securing such freedoms, Angell argued, might economic freedom be attained. Roosevelt, by contrast, placed freedom from want on an equal footing with freedom of expression. Reflecting the developments of new or social liberalism in Britain and the United States since the late nineteenth century, it was Roosevelt’s doctrine that won the most widespread support. His presidential address was not only adopted by Laski’s party, but can also be seen to have had an enormous influence upon the proceedings that led to the formation of the United Nations. The Atlantic Charter of August 1941 specifically mentioned “freedom from fear and want” in the objectives of the anti-Axis coalition. The Charter was embodied in the United Nations Declaration, signed by the 26 states of the coalition in January 1942, which emphasized cooperation and unity against the common foe (see Nicholas 1975, 1–2). As we saw in chapter 2, since the early 1930s Laski had admired Roosevelt’s attempt to introduce social liberal reform. In his book The American Presidency of 1940 he quoted approvingly Roosevelt’s criticism four years earlier, of those in the United States who had “conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but . . . have maintained that economic slavery was no one’s business.” Those people had, the president went on, “denied that the Government could do anything to protect the citizen in his right to work and his right to live” (Roosevelt quoted in Laski 1940c, 277). Roosevelt’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of conceptions of liberty that denied the relevance of social problems clearly struck a chord with Laski. Indeed, in his short book The Strategy of Freedom in 1942 Laski argued that, upon securing victory over Hitler, “the peace treaty we should seek to assist in making would be built upon the recognition that enduring peace depends upon making universal as rapidly as possible the enjoyment of President Roosevelt’s four freedoms” (1942b, 96). Two years later he expressed his support for Roosevelt’s goals in a letter in which he congratulated the president on winning a fourth term, and urged him to make it one in which “the Four Freedoms would become realities for ever-greater masses of people” (Roosevelt ed. 1952, 523). Notwithstanding their broad agreement on the freedoms that should be at the heart of the war aims, Roosevelt and Laski differed on two fundamental points. First, although he was concerned that economic nationalism had been a major factor in the Great Depression, Roosevelt looked for economic cooperation between nation-states rather than an entirely new order. He hoped that the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China would act as a global police force (Simpson 1989, 72–3). Roosevelt was thus

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tied to a guardian role for responsible, powerful states—the type of role that many of the English school theorists of international society would in later years defend (see Wheeler 1996, 124). Laski, on the other hand, was still adamant that a satisfactory world order could not be built around the power of states. In his view the notion of state sovereignty would continue to allow those with vested interests in the existing society to exploit nationalist emotions. Having, as we saw in chapter 6, put forward this view in response to Angell in the early to mid-1930s, he had restated the belief clearly on the eve of the War in 1939. Once again invoking the image of the mask or veneer he argued that, through the notion of sovereignty, the state could use “the psychological unity of nationhood” to “gloss over the real interests it is protecting as a state.” As he suggested: In this context British imperialism looks quite different to Germans and Italians from the way it looks to British citizens. An attempt to share the spoils of imperialism seems “national development” to the Germans and Italians while it seems “aggression” to the British citizens. The principle of consent to change in international affairs has no validity so long as the interests of each nation-state in the results of change are as divergent as they are in the present economic configuration of society. (1939c, 398) In Reflections he referred to the work of one of his fellow debaters of the “Does capitalism cause war?” debate that had been played out in the 1930s. “Sovereignty, in short, is,” he argued, “the instrument through which the vested interests in any society wage what Mr Brailsford has happily termed the war of steel and gold; and under the cloak of government authority, they invoke the half-rational sentiment of nationalism to maintain their power abroad” (1943a, 217). A new international system that was not dominated by nation-states would thus depend, as he had stressed for many years, upon fundamental social change. Laski thus clearly believed that the crisis of self-determination and economic crisis to which Carr referred were linked with one another. This leads us to the second fundamental point on which the president and political thinker differed. Unlike Laski Roosevelt did not, of course, challenge the existing relations of production within the countries that would comprise the new world order. Indeed, he hoped to implement widely the open door policy of capitalist economic relations. Moreover, in seeking a sound recovery and environment for economic expansion, the Roosevelt administration in 1944 sponsored the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (Simpson 1989, 77). Laski recognized that Roosevelt sought

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extensive social reform within capitalist society. He quoted the president’s argument to Congress in 1941 that a “healthy and strong democracy” must be based on equality of opportunity, guaranteed employment, security for those in need, the ending of special privileges, civil liberties for all, and scientific progress to raise the standard of living. This, Roosevelt had stressed, was “no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our time and generation.” This, however, was “the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb” (Roosevelt quoted in Laski 1942b, 109). Laski noted Roosevelt’s recognition that such a healthy and strong democracy could only exist against a background of economic relationships in which members of society shared that attainable vision. The problem was, according to Laski, that the common interest was inhibited by the class structure of society. “So long,” he went on, “as that class structure remains unchanged, so long, to state it another way, as we fail to set liberty in the context of equality, the objective conditions are wanting in which there can be agreement upon fundamentals” (1942b, 109). Without such agreement democracy could not survive. Hence, whilst Roosevelt was right to stress that Hitlerism was incompatible with a healthy and strong democracy, the defeat of the tyrant would not guarantee the achievement of such a democracy in their time and generation. What Laski thus did with the Four Freedoms was to adapt the notion to suit an ideological perspective that differed fundamentally from that of Roosevelt. By focusing on the influence of Roosevelt’s presidential address, one gets a clearer view of the position that Laski took on freedom during the War. As will be recalled, in Reflections Laski had discussed freedom in positive terms, arguing that a planned society was necessary for freedom to be enjoyed widely. But this readoption of the positive conception served only to obscure further the central theme which survived the oscillation of his interpretation of freedom over more than two decades. His use of the idea of Four Freedoms helps clarify his position. He believed that the fulfillment of those freedoms required the social constraints to be removed by a planned democracy and a higher international standard of living. Those constraints could not, however, be removed without a fundamental change in the class relations of society. Anxious to see progress toward these ends, he called (1943d) for the embryonic United Nations to begin at once to devise the organizational machinery with which a program of international relief would be introduced without delay at the end of hostilities. Believing that to delay until after the War would be to lose the opportunity presented by the invaluable but temporary momentum of wartime unity,

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Laski argued that the Four Freedoms must be pursued in the domestic and international arenas simultaneously. Turning his attention to the situation in Britain, he claimed (1943a, 168) in Reflections that the realization of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms required firm commitments to prevent (a) the reemergence of mass unemployment; (b) the reemergence of distressed areas; and (c) the opportunities for profiteering in the process of reconstruction. On the international scene he stressed that to avoid repetition of the situation after 1918, when the conditions of the Second World War had begun immediately to develop, the conditions for the economics of expansion would need to be organized. This would require a worldwide increase in living standards. The increase would be greatest and most necessary in the very poor countries and areas such as China, India, South-Eastern Europe, and South America. As he saw it: “The secret of peace is the enlargement of effective demand . . .” (1943a, 208). This would require a planned economy for the many, which experience demonstrated to be impossible within the capitalist relations of production. Attempting thus to address this urgent issue of international post-War relief, Laski was adamant that capitalist democracy was inadequate to the task; only an egalitarian democracy could achieve the liberation of the world’s forces of production, which was necessary for the worldwide realization of the Four Freedoms. This would require a change of the relations of production within states; but a problem was that the sovereign state served as a protective armament to maintain “a particular configuration of economic interests” (1943a, 216). That configuration was, he argued, incompatible with organization for “the planned development of a world regarded as a common pool of wealth to which all nations have access, on terms as nearly equal as we can make them” (1943a, 221). This was a problem that, in Laski’s view, was becoming clear now that capitalism had reached its parlous condition of the 1940s. What was significant, in his view, was that “democracy and freedom flourish when economic systems expand, and not otherwise” (1943a, 207). He conceded that the “logic of capitalism enables it, in its historic phase of expansion, to marry with political democracy because it has then the economic elbow-room necessary to satisfy the demand of the masses” (1943a, 216). But he believed that, now that capitalism had reached its stage of contraction, the retention of sovereignty had become even more crucial in response to international tension and conflict. In Laski’s view this was a problem that would make any attempts by the United Nations to pursue far-reaching international reform incompatible with the maintenance of capitalist democracy and the sovereign state. Events following the signing of the Atlantic Charter help substantiate Laski’s belief.

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Negotiations, for example, among the U.S. administration, the British government, and the Dutch government in exile regarding the colonies soon became dominated by concern for existing obligations, commercial interests, and the containment of communism. Churchill was reluctant to allow foreign powers to encroach on British sovereignty, and U.S. anticolonialism was combined with a concern by the U.S. state department that the British and Dutch should not be allowed to damage the economic interests of the “great American nation” (see Grosser 1980, 18–20). It was the economic motives that underpinned the retention of the power of states in international affairs which convinced Laski that it would not be sufficient merely to declare the abolition of sovereignty, on the basis that is a fundamentally flawed concept: “For it reaches down so deep into the roots of capitalist society that, to abolish it effectively, requires a revolution in those relations of production upon which the political superstructure of a society depends” (1943a, 218). However unrealistic sovereignty theory might be, states would continue to cling to this concept. After the War he saw that the attempts to build a new world order substantiated his fears. “Once the Charter of San Francisco made the principle of national sovereignty its basis,” he observed in 1947, the constituent members of the United Nations could cooperate only to the degree that their governments were prepared to sacrifice or to adjust the claims of the vested interests it was the function of each of them to protect, to some larger common welfare which reached so clearly beyond those claims that no vested interest within the territory it controlled would dare to challenge its decision. (1947a, 44) In the short time since the signing of the Charter it had, he went on, become “clear how narrow is the room for manoeuvre permitted by this limitation.” At this point we might recall the discussion in chapter 2 of this book of Laski’s relative autonomy–type analysis of politics within states. One can see clearly Laski’s adaptation of such analysis to international politics and society. There could be some cooperation between states, but only so long as the structure of international capitalism was not undermined. To attempt to transcend those boundaries would be futile without a challenge to the structure itself. He was thus still convinced that the development of the postsovereignty international system, which was necessary for the development of worldwide freedom and democracy, would require capitalism to be uprooted. Only thus would human rights be respected on a global scale.

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The United Nations, Human Rights, and the Cold War The signing of the Charter at San Francisco in 1945, by delegates from 50 nations, represented the second great attempt in the twentieth century to orchestrate worldwide peace (Nicholas 1975, 9–13). Laski cautiously welcomed this new attempt, arguing in a speech the following year (LP Manchester, LP/LAS/38–34) that it was imperative that public opinion everywhere demanded that governments did not by-pass the United Nations Organization, as their predecessors had by-passed the League. Nevertheless, as we have seen, Laski was under no illusion that his preferred, post-sovereign international order would result from victory. He was not, then, overly surprised at the disappointing train of events that unfolded once peace was secured. A fundamental problem, from Laski’s perspective, had been the form taken by the United Nations Organization. “We have built an interdependent world economy,” he argued in 1947, “but we have hardly sought in any serious way to build the institutions that are appropriate to its governance” (1947a, 36). Although it was intended to be an organization through which to maintain peace and security, the formation of the United Nations on the principle of cooperation between sovereign states, each of which would retain its existing economic and political system, meant that both capitalism and sovereignty were barely touched. “We cannot rest content,” he stressed, until we have a genuine world government expressing, through the direct choice of peoples, in a parliament responsible to them, the will of the common folk, instead of being dependent, like the United Nations, upon the sovereign wills of nation states which express, in all vital matters, the purposes of their ruling classes and subordinate to those purposes the interests of the common peoples. (1947a, 45) Bearing in mind the discussion of democracy in chapter 3 of the present study, one can see that he thus pressed for both a democratic international society and democratic international government. As was discussed in chapter 3, Laski considered that a crucial element of democratic society was the respect for and promotion of political and social rights. Now the United Nations Charter mentioned human rights as a key aim. The peoples of the United Nations, the preamble stated, determined “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small . . . ” (see Nicholas 1975, 221). A problem that has been identified

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with this statement is that, so long as states are considered to be equal, enjoying the autonomy that is involved in a right to self-determination, people are likely at most to be considered equal within those states. In the absence of enforcement of international law, international human rights are only recognized as such if the state perceives them in this way (Rosas 1995, 63–5). The problem involved in the notion of the rights of states was something of which Laski was certainly aware. Whilst serving, two years after the signing of the Charter, on an influential UNESCO Committee set up to discuss the basis of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he could not accept the generally optimistic view of many of his internationalist colleagues. It was, for him, doubtful whether such a declaration would be universally acceptable in the absence of the real prospect of resolving the clash of values both within and between states. “Any discussion of human rights must,” he stressed, “involve the discussion of the rights of those nations recognised as states. For their governments exercise, in greater or lesser degree, not only direct power over their own citizens, but also indirect power over the lives of the citizens of other nations” (1948a, 81). In the case of politics within nations, history had shown that attempts to bring a right into effective operation would founder in any society “unless the citizens of that society have a broadly equal interest in the results of its fulfilment” (1948a, 80). Rights proclaimed by previous great documents had been “statements of aspiration, the fulfilment of which is limited by the view taken by the ruling class of any political community of its relations to the security of interests they are determined to maintain” (1948a, 78). This highly critical analysis of documents, such as those of eighteenthcentury France and America, once again enables us to see that Laski was identifying trends that would, several decades later, be discussed in terms of relative autonomy. Although previous declarations had been presented in universal form, “in their application the status of universality was always reduced to a particularity made, so far as possible, to coincide with what a ruling class believed to be in its interest, or what it regarded as the necessary limits of safe concession” (1948a, 86). There could, indeed, be no guarantee under existing social and economic arrangements that political democracy and human rights would always be respected and observed. Citing the United States as a prime example to illustrate his point, in his view “democratic institutions and the human rights these are intended to safeguard, necessarily function within the limits of a framework imposed upon them by the purposes implicit in the relations of production which a concentration of economic power involves” (1948a, 87). He thus identified a problem that

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touches on the very nature of human rights. Such rights are justified not by appeal to a statute or contract, or indeed any kind of positive law. Ultimately, human rights are justified by appeal to what ought, by rational calculation, to prevail (Vincent 1986, 11). To the extent that governments or international organizations are restrained in defending human rights, then statements of aspiration remain unfulfilled. Laski conceded that government interference should be limited when it came to rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religious belief. Yet, even then, general principles meant little until they were applied to actual circumstances. Government interference might sometimes be less dangerous than other factors to the fulfillment of rights. The concentration of the ownership of the press in private hands was an example he offered in this respect. In other cases democratic governmental authority ought actually be strengthened. What urgently needed to be grasped was that the exercise by cooperating citizens of the authority of government was essential for the adequate provision of such vital elements of the social good as education, housing, health, and social security. Only thus could individual freedom be realized. “No statement of rights,” he stressed, “could be relevant to the contemporary situation which ignored this fact” (1948a, 79). However, as was discussed earlier, the level of such provision would at present be regulated by the condition of capitalism. In this vein Laski once again invoked Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, arguing in the third edition of Liberty in the Modern State that the future of liberty was dependent upon their realization. The problem was that the future of liberty was insecure. As he put it: Grave economic crisis over much of the world makes freedom from want an ideal that is bound to remain an empty one for long years to come. There can be no freedom from fear while international rivalry is so tense, above all when one, though only one, of the new weapons that may be used if that rivalry is allowed to drift to war, is the atomic bomb. (1948e, 13–14) Laski was thus concerned that a new arms race was rapidly taking place between states that had allied with one another in the struggle against the Axis powers. Clutching for some means to address this problem he called for all research into the use of atomic energy to be conducted under international control and inspection (see LP Manchester, LP/LAS/38-34). Moreover, he became an early commentator (1947b) on the threat posed by the Cold War to world peace and the future of international cooperation,

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predicting with great foresight the consequences of the hostility with which U.S. and Soviet politicians discussed one another. The “propaganda for home consumption on both sides” had begun “to take on the color of reality. That reality turned verbal duals into hostile policies, sharpened by long memories of past threats and mutual suspicions” (1947b, 10). He attempted (1947c) in vain to press the British government to take a more balanced approach in its relations with the United States and Soviet Union. Moreover, he encouraged (1948f ) American accommodation with the Soviet Union. Laski paid close attention to the problems that the Cold War was bringing to U.S. politics and society. The costs of the Truman Doctrine had, according to him, begun to dominate American politics and subordinate domestic to foreign policy. He speculated (1949a, 176–80) that not only U.S. domestic policy would be thus subordinated, but likewise much West European defense policy, unless a strong president could dispel the fear that to steer the country away from large-scale preparations for war would result in high unemployment. In this atmosphere he continued until his death in 1950 to deny that the post-War international settlement would bring security and freedom throughout the world. Summary As this and the previous chapter have illustrated, the continuities and discontinuities within Laski’s thought on international politics reflected the development of his political philosophy more generally. As he became convinced of the value of Marxism, coming thus to judge that capitalism was more firmly entrenched than he had previously supposed, he abandoned hope that the League of Nations might develop into a new world order wherein sovereignty would be redundant. He now judged that capitalism would have to be uprooted before, or at least in simultaneity with, international political reform. When War broke out in 1939 the international aspect of his thought drew upon and adapted his rather weak doctrine of “revolution by consent.” International cooperation in the struggle against Hitler and his allies, Laski argued, provided a valuable opportunity, which should not be missed, to secure fundamental international change. The dominant classes might, he hoped, see that capitalism was doomed and that compromise was a better option than the revolution that loomed. Laski’s hopes would be dashed once again when the post-War settlement revived the international system of nation-states. Capitalism, moreover, proved to be far more durable than he imagined, and continued to guide the actions of the nominally sovereign Western states. But the remainder of

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the century would bear out his argument that the Four Freedoms were unrealizable in a world dominated largely by capitalism. Decades of Cold War would, furthermore, vindicate the prophesy of his final (unfinished) manuscript that victory in the previous conflict could not be devoted to great ends whilst “two great combinations of nation states” (1952, 38) opposed one another. Although he died deeply dissatisfied with the post-War international order, his work remains valuable to scholars who seek to understand the problems facing democracy and freedom in a world in which capitalist competition is played out with the assistance of nominally sovereign states. The Cold War no longer, of course, threatens mutually assured destruction as Laski feared at the end of his life; but his critique of the role of the nominally sovereign nation-state in an interdependent world is still of great significance. Such significance revolves around the artificiality of sovereignty that Laski had always sought to highlight. As was mentioned in chapter 5, he had argued as early as 1916 that by assuming that individual thought and soul must ultimately be absorbed in the national life, theories of the sovereign state place “authority before truth” (1916, 303). In the decades that followed Laski would observe the way in which the truth of interdependence materialized in a world of increasingly advanced capabilities in production, agriculture, and communication. In the final years of his life he would continue to state his case for an international system of government, which for him, was the only way to realize the truth of interdependence. Nevertheless, he was aware that the sovereignty discourse, having permeated popular thought, remained an obstacle to this ideal. He conceded in his pamphlet Socialism as Internationalism that even socialists, for whom international solidarity and cooperation were fundamental tenets, had only “paid eager and profound lip-service to the principle of internationalism” (1949b, 3). Internationalism remained little more than a “pious aspiration” in the socialist movement. It could be shown, moreover, that this aspiration was “compelled to remain pious only as soon as one examines the relation of socialist movements to the economic policies of sovereign-states” (1949b, 8). Even for socialists, the tension between sovereignty and the cooperation necessitated by interdependence had yet to be overcome. Indeed, as would be stressed several decades later, by mobilizing institutions and loyalties that privilege and legitimize particular understandings of reality, “the sovereignty discourse constitutes a power play which obscures as much as it illuminates” (Camilleri and Falk 1992, 236). Sovereignty had, indeed, always been what has more recently been described as a social construct that is called upon to pursue certain interests and justify actions of particular states

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(Biersteker and Weber 1996). Such problems associated with the role of the sovereign state had come to occupy a place at the forefront of contemporary political discourse by the end of the twentieth century. As Darel E. Paul has put it (Paul 1999, 217–19), sovereignty has become part of an anthropomorphic conceptualization of the state. States are considered to live with and die without the status of sovereignty. To think and act in terms of sovereignty theory serves to blind the analyst to the overlapping authorities that characterize contemporary politics. As Paul suggests, sovereignty theory thus leads one into a blind alley. As we saw in chapter 6, Laski had sought in the early 1930s to sow a new cosmopolitan discourse revolving around the civitas maxima, in place of the sovereignty discourse. Whilst he never tired of pressing for a new international institutional framework in that decade and the next, he would have recognized the problem, to which contemporary cosmopolitans point (see Chandler 2003), that the spread of democracy beyond the realm of states seems unlikely to succeed when sovereignty remains as the informing principle of international politics. As the present volume has, hopefully, thus far illustrated, Laski encourages us to consider just why the Westphalian blind alley has continued to obscure alternatives to the system of ostensibly sovereign states. It is this that makes his critique of the role of the nominally sovereign nation-state so significant today. By focusing on the status of sovereignty as a normative concept that serves to legitimate the dominance of certain societal groups, his work allows us, for instance, to reflect critically on the normative debates of the English school of international relations scholars. Those debates have largely been waged between pluralist and solidarist interpretations of the international system. Pluralists argue that the system is essentially a practical association of sovereign states each with its own purposes, whilst solidarists consider that those states are bound together by common purposes (Reus-Smit 2002; Dunne 2001). Sovereignty is, Robert Jackson has recently suggested from his pluralist position within that debate, “the basic norm, grundnorm, upon which a society of states ultimately rests . . . . A conceivable future world of non-sovereign states would have to be based on an alternative normative foundation of some kind . . .” (Jackson 1999, 432). Laski would have agreed that sovereignty has this status, but rejected the argument that it must necessarily do so. His point was that sovereignty was the most convenient form to uphold the vested interests of the existing economic order. Sovereignty is neither a natural nor inevitable way of arranging power and authority. Nevertheless, Laski was convinced that without fundamental economic change a new post-sovereign global arrangement would have to be one that was at least equally beneficial to the vested interests. From this

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perspective he would have argued that the solidarity that is envisaged by opponents of pluralism in English school thought would in the present climate be sadly wanting. Although it has been argued (Taylor 1999) that the United Nations has in the post–Cold War era responded to globalization, by pursuing a policy of proactive cosmopolitanism based on a consensus about values and behavior, this policy has been based on the maintenance and promotion of well-founded states. States unfit to be members of the international society would be considered not to be sovereign. The question that this raises is whether values and behavior would be tolerated that posed a serious challenge to the vested interests of the existing economic order. If sovereignty is a basic norm that is being reshaped in order to help legitimate the existing order by trimming its unpalatable edges, then Laski’s work remains significant as a contribution to the understanding of modern and contemporary international relations.

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CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: Laski’s Enduring Significance

A

s his political thought evolved in the early to mid-twentieth century Laski investigated the problems of democracy, freedom, and sovereignty in the existing global order. He also explored the prospects for a new, international society. Focusing on those problems and prospects, he was concerned to demonstrate the shortcomings of both the external and internal roles of the modern, capitalist state. When carefully pieced together, many of his key points amount to a cogent critique of the obstacles to responsive rule and widespread human flourishing in an increasingly interdependent, but also capitalist-dominated, world. The nominally sovereign state is, moreover, exposed by his writings as a crucial medium in the management and legitimation of the domestic and international aspects of class dominance. In each of the chapters thus far, I have stressed that attention should be focused upon the processes of change that helped shape Laski’s ideas. Only by proceeding in this way might one grasp fully the way in which his work makes an important contribution to international political thought. In each chapter the narrative also sought to demonstrate that the distinctive character of his thought can only be fully appreciated by charting the important elements of continuity that survived his ideological metamorphosis. How, then, did these continuities and discontinuities affect his attempt to expose the realities of capitalist democracy and the modern state? Why, furthermore, might today’s scholars of politics and international relations find it useful to consult his work more than half a century after his death? This final chapter seeks in summary to address such questions.

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Continuity and Change Although Laski subjected his early pluralist and social democratic tenets to a gradual but eventually fundamental process of revision, his early theory that the concept of sovereignty conveyed a false impression of overarching unity remained an important theme in his critique of state power. In his search for a solution to the problem of the place of individuals both in their societies, and moreover their wider global environment, he continued to think in terms of freedom and rights. These features of his thought are most conspicuous in A Grammar of Politics, where he discussed in detail the economic, social, and political conditions that he perceived as the essential rights of humanity. In that well-known book he presented most forthrightly his theory that, by themselves, political rights could achieve only a severely truncated form of democracy. As he would state more than 20 years later, in anticipation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the crucial social and economic rights would in the existing circumstances be at the mercy of the capitalist-dominated state. This problem of rights had consequences for freedom. In A Grammar he argued that the channels to the widespread selfrealization that freedom involved could not be entrenched in the absence of the conditions that would allow each person as an individual to combine democratically with their fellow citizens in realistic pursuit of the social good. It was on the basis of decades of deliberation upon this problem that his thought came to incorporate, on the one hand, enthusiasm for Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms, and on the other hand skepticism regarding their realization in the existing world order. The central themes of democracy, rights, and freedom in Laski’s thought thus survived his experience of the turmoil that, from the time of the General Strike in Britain, seemed likely to many on the Left to destroy liberal democracy. Indeed, from the late 1920s until his death in 1950, the gravity of the problems of class dominance was continually reassessed in his writings. During this process the fundamental changes that occurred in his thought were largely concerned with the capacity of the capitalist form of democracy to accommodate within itself the extensive reforms that were necessary to allow democracy to mature throughout the world. As doubt during this period affected the various aspects of his political writings, he developed a trenchant theory that such reforms would be doomed to failure so long as the economic foundations of the existing world order remained unchallenged. Until capitalism could itself be uprooted, the nominally sovereign state would continue to serve class power—or at least continue to leave such power unthreatened. Sovereignty, the problems of which had formed a

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central theme in his early political thought, was portrayed in his writings of the 1930s and 1940s as a mainstay of domestic and international capitalism. By examining the way in which the balance of continuity and change in Laski’s thought led him to formulate and develop these ideas, this book has attempted to correct the highly misleading interpretation propagated in no small measure by Deane. On the basis of his erroneous assumption that Laski’s thought passed through several sharply definable ideological phases, Deane produced an illusory picture of Laski as a thinker of very little importance. But, on the contrary, if one reads his output as a project in which the central themes developed through a process of reflection and revision, Laski can be seen as a theorist of considerable weight. The problem was, however, that the balance between continuity and change was not signaled sufficiently clearly in his writings to have prevented Deane’s influential misinterpretation. Laski might have avoided this problem had he produced a thoroughly revised version of A Grammar. That he continued to subscribe to much of the normative philosophy and socialist purpose of the book is evident from his publication of the text in virtually unaltered editions, with only brief new qualificatory prefaces in 1930 and 1934. Indeed, in the preface to the edition of 1934 he declared that he could see no need to change the essential doctrine and central principles of the book. The decade since the first edition had, he elaborated, confirmed the importance of the following themes: The necessary federal character of society; the incompatibility of the sovereign state with that economic world-order so painfully struggling to be born; the antithesis between individual property rights in the essential means of production and the fulfilment of the democratic idea; the thesis that liberty is a concept devoid of real meaning except in the context of equality; the refusal to regard law as valid merely in terms of the formal authority from which it emanates; the argument that in any society, even when based on equal and universal suffrage, the existence of serious economic inequalities biases the incidence of government in favour of the rich. (1938a, 5) Although, as we saw in chapter 7, he came to change his analysis of federalism, he continued thereafter to develop each of the other themes outlined in the 1934 preface. Nevertheless, in the process of development his views on themes such as the state and liberty underwent significant revision. Crucial to the consequent shifts that became visible in his works of the 1930s and 1940s was the gradual but eventually fundamental change in his attitude

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to, and interpretation of, Marxism. He indeed adopted a very different ideological perspective from that which had underpinned the main themes of A Grammar. This ideological transformation was broadly confirmed in 1938. Whilst the edition of A Grammar that appeared that year left the original text almost entirely unchanged, a substantial and important new introductory chapter was added. This contained a brief section outlining the problems he now saw regarding the pluralist assumptions of the book. He considered that the problems he had discussed in the volume were more firmly entrenched within capitalist society than he had, in the 1920s, imagined. However, due to his unwillingness to alter the main text, the book now appears not entirely congruous with many of the other works he produced from his far more radical position of the 1930s and 1940s. The thread of continuity, which was of such significance to the points he attempted to convey during those decades, is therefore easily overlooked. A comprehensive revision of A Grammar would have enabled Laski to set out more clearly his distinctive combination of pluralist and Marxist themes. He could have discussed the way in which his Marxist perspective had led him to understand more fully the problem of asserting rights, especially when the state was considered as sovereign. He might also have elaborated on his brief comment in the introductory chapter of 1938 that he had come to see the function of state sovereignty in a new light. He could, furthermore, have avoided much of the confusion displayed in his work on the nature of freedom. Finally, he could have dealt with the weaknesses of his earlier views on the League of Nations and international organization, perhaps making comments of greater length and profundity on the problems and events leading to the renewal of world war. The revised edition, along with his 1930s trilogy (1933b; 1935a; 1936b), would thus have made a far more coherent contribution to the understanding of modern capitalist democracy in its international context. By continuing to publish the book largely in its original form, he missed the opportunity to explain clearly to his readers that his approach involved comprehensive revision on the basis of new evidence, rather than the abandonment of his original ideas in their entirety. It was largely as a consequence of this negligence that Deane was able to portray him so successfully as an insignificant theorist. The decline in Laski’s reputation, which Deane thus hastened, led the more powerful aspects of his thought to be overshadowed by his undeniable weaknesses. One such weakness was his underestimation of the capacity of Western capitalism to survive economic crises without resorting to the suspension of political democracy. How damaging, one might enquire, was this

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weakness to his wider critique of capitalist democracy and the modern state? In the following section I attempt briefly to indicate that the stronger points of his thought have by no means become irrelevant. Capitalism and Democracy: The Unstable Relationship In the 1930s and 1940s Laski focused on the increasing demands that had been made during the twentieth century upon a socioeconomic system geared ultimately toward the interests of the capitalist class. The conclusion he drew was that this dominant class would have either to submit and accept the demise of the system by which it was served—voluntarily or as a result of force—or to suppress democracy. In the 1930s he predicted reluctantly and pessimistically (1933b, ch. 4; 1935a, ch. 4) that the matter would be settled one way or the other by force. As we saw in chapters 2 and 7, the war years of the 1940s brought about a new development in Laski’s position on this issue. He began to hold out hope (1940b; 1943a) that revolution might after all be achieved by consent in Britain and thence internationally. One year after the victory over Hitler, in a speech delivered in Sussex, he congratulated his party for its progress on policy regarding nationalization, the embryonic National Health Service, social insurance, and educational reform. Turning to foreign policy he urged the government to secure agreement with India, and to pursue close friendship with France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Indeed, he considered Anglo-Russian solidarity to be “the key to world peace” (LP Manchester, LP/LAS/38-34). But already he foresaw immense difficulties. The America of big business was, he argued, “not less reactionary in international relations than it was towards every progressive measure which sought to benefit the workers of the United States” (LP Manchester, LP/LAS/38-34). Thereafter, although his hopes waned as his preferred new world order failed to materialize, he continued throughout the remainder of the decade to pursue this strategy. Laski’s greatest fear was that failure to implement fundamental social and economic change would lead to revolution and perhaps reaction. “We need,” he argued, “a wholesale change in human relationships; and we cannot get that change if we live under the power of economic concepts which compel a deteriorating sense of social obligation. We are on the edge of social chaos” (1948d, 64). He insisted (1948d, 49–50; 1950, 22–3 and 88–90) that, in order to prevent its efforts from being unpicked in the coming years, the Labour government would need to step up its campaign to build a socialist planned democracy. Notwithstanding his growing disillusion with his party in government, he refused to give up hope. “A British working class that had

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achieved its own emancipation,” he eulogized in Communist Manifesto: Socialist Landmark, “could build that working-class unity everywhere out of which the new world will finally be won” (1948g, 104). Finally, on an optimistic note in one of the last lectures he ever delivered (1951, 92–3), he expressed confidence that the social and economic changes might be completed through parliamentary means. What remained consistent throughout this vacillation during those two decades was his belief that either capitalism or democracy would soon have to give way. The weakness of Laski’s somewhat apocalyptic theory was revealed first by the continuation and restoration of capitalist democracy after the Second World War, and subsequently by the raised standards of living that followed in the 1950s. Indeed, evolutionary socialist analyses of capitalism, such as that expressed by Eduard Bernstein (1961 [1899]) at the end of the nineteenth century, had judged more accurately the ability of capitalism to continue to accommodate a competitive system of majority representative government. But this is not to say that Bernstein would have been satisfied with post-War social democracy. He was (1961, ch. 3), like Laski after him, of the opinion that democracy involved more than simply majority rule. Bernstein considered democracy to be a system of rights and justice. This, he argued, would require “an absence of class government, as the indication of a social condition where a political privilege belongs to no one class as opposed to the whole community” (1961, 142). What is significant is that the social condition after the Second World War was not, in fact, one in which bargaining power was equalized; hence, democracy was not allowed to develop beyond its political form. As Laski insisted, a more substantial democracy, wherein government would be responsive equally to the demands of citizens, would be incompatible with capitalism. By thus interpreting democracy strictly in accordance with its basic postulates, he saw more clearly than many the relation between democracy and capitalism. As was mentioned earlier, in discussing the problems of combining capitalism with democracy Laski focused on the rights he considered to be crucial to equally responsive rule. These rights included those that evolve in accordance with the ability of society to satisfy perceived universal needs, and also depend for their satisfaction upon economic equality. But he stressed that capitalist society and the existing international system would be unable to accommodate such substantial economic equality as to make equally responsive rule a reality. The much weaker, purely political equality provided only a low level of democracy. The implication, for Laski, was that capitalism could not, ultimately, recognize socioeconomic rights qua rights at all. Rather, capitalism merely

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granted concessions to such rights when conditions allowed. As he put it, if the property relations of society are working well, “there will be a period of concession to the multitude which can live only by the sale of its labour power. If they are working badly, the policy of concession will halt. A system which lives by profit must make profit” (1940a, 168–9). This reflects a basic tension within capitalist democracy—a tension that continues to be voiced by some on the Left. On the one hand capitalist democracy depends for legitimacy upon political equality and rights, whilst on the other hand economic inequality remains essential to capitalism (see, e.g., Miliband 1994, 21–8; Schwartzmantel 1995, 209–11). What was in this respect significant about the post-War general rise in living standards was that it did not bring about fundamental change in the class structure of capitalist societies (Bottomore 1965, 33–46; Parkin 1972, 114–21; Westergaard and Resler 1976, 31–51). Socioeconomic rights were not entrenched; hence equal levels of response by government to needs and claims were not established. This reflected the very nature of capitalism, which, being concerned primarily with profit, places restrictions upon the capacity of the state to alleviate problems of poverty and inequality (Miliband 1994, 12–14). Capitalism can, indeed, only maintain welfare transfers so long as these do not affect profits in such a way as to thwart capitalist enterprise (Macpherson 1973, 12). Now if, when capitalism suffered recession, rights were suppressed equally amongst people in society, then the existing level of democracy would not thereby suffer. In that case one might respond to Laski by suggesting that the problems of capitalism were being addressed in an equitable manner. The demands of all citizens would be treated no less equally than before. But socioeconomic demands are suppressed unequally when this is deemed as necessary for the stability of capitalism (Miliband 1969, ch. 9). That this is the case is illustrated clearly by the structural readjustment of the welfare state in the Western liberal democracies during the last quarter of the twentieth century (Pierson 1998, ch. 5). Capitalism cannot accommodate a political order which guarantees that a substantial system of equal rights will be upheld. A guarantee that socioeconomic rights will be respected whatever the circumstances would, indeed, be tantamount to the risk of witnessing a change to the configuration of economic power in society. Hence democracy, which depends upon rights for its development, tends to be the partner that concedes ground when this is what capitalism requires. It can thus be seen that, notwithstanding his erroneous vision of the demise of capitalist democracy itself, Laski offered a defensible analysis of the difficulties facing the development of democracy within the capitalist system.

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By examining Laski’s formulation of that analysis in the 1930s, on the basis of his earlier theory of rights, the present study has elaborated on Miliband’s hint that Laski’s work can be interpreted as an early investigation of relative autonomy. Indeed, Laski suggested toward the end of his life that government intervention in a capitalist society would normally be to the advantage of the owning class and management. As he stated: That is so even where, as in Britain, a Labour government is in power but faces a position in which the sector of publicly owned and operated industry is small and the main character of ownership is capitalist. In such a case, while the Labour government is the bearer of state power in a formal sense, factually the authority concentrated in private ownership and control sets drastic limits to the area within which that state power may be used. (1950, 22) Laski was thus aware of problems that would be underestimated a few years later by social democratic thinkers such as Crosland (1956) and, in his later work, Strachey (1956). Democratic rights cannot be allowed to challenge fundamentally the inequality that is so inherent to capitalism. This is moreover a problem that continues to haunt democratic theory in the twenty-first century. The restraints upon social democracy attributed fashionably to an all encompassing globalization have in fact been the results of policy-makers responding, as had the Labour and National governments in Britain following the 1931 Crisis, to the requirements of international capital (Callaghan 2002). The 1931 Crisis was, as we have seen, one of a series of events in the late 1920s and early 1930s that convinced Laski that capitalism must be uprooted. The revival of associationalist ideas as an alternative to the failed social democratic project must likewise face this ultimate contradiction between capitalism and democracy. As has been discussed in this book, when Laski’s recognition of the contradiction led him eventually to a fundamental revision of his pluralist philosophy, he came to argue that a substantial democracy would require the transcendence of capitalism rather than merely a program of reform. In order to satisfy more fully the concept of democracy as equally responsive rule, there would need to be a cessation of capitalist class power, which would in turn require the introduction of a wholly new socioeconomic order. These important points, which Laski expressed for many years, as his disillusionment with associationalism intensified, should be taken seriously today. Laski’s warnings about the problem of extending democracy without fundamental socioeconomic change might be retrieved in the light of recent

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attempts to modernize social democracy. The ideas of the “democratizing of democracy,” “downward democratization,” a “second wave of democratization,” and “upward democratization,” as presented by the advocates of the “Third Way” (see Giddens 1998, 70–8; 2000, 55–62 and 159–62), do not address the problems that Laski identified and analyzed. Laski’s work points to the problems of democratization in the present social and economic environment of both domestic and global politics. The basic problem is that attempts to make democracy more democratic, or in other words to make formal democracy more democratically effective, are likely to falter when the existing structure of power begins to come under challenge. Democracy can indeed take new and varied forms; it can be extended downward into the present realm of civil society and upward beyond the level of the nation state. The deepening of democracy is another matter. As we have seen, Laski did not offer a strong strategy for democracy to break through its present, restrictive boundaries. Nevertheless, his work serves to remind reformers that their democratic developments, whilst not to be discouraged, might not be as radical as they seem. Democrats who do aspire to radicalism will realize that much exploration is still required. If Laski’s theory of the incompatibility of capitalism and substantial democracy thus warrants renewed attention, what of his connected but very unsettled theory of liberty? He believed that a substantial democracy would be necessary for freedom to be enjoyed universally, and to have any real value for humanity. For more than three decades he sought to elaborate clearly on this belief. The problem was, as we saw in chapter 4, that he stumbled into great confusion by resorting alternatively to each side of the negative/positive distinction. Democracy, Freedom, and Equality What survived Laski’s oscillation regarding freedom was an egalitarian current which was consistent with his theory that, in capitalist societies, rights and democracy are at the mercy of profit. From his radical egalitarian perspective he feared that, in a world dominated by the strongest of such societies, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms would be little more than platitudes. The president’s idea would thus be impotent as a policy for international justice. As Laski saw it, the inability of capitalism to guarantee socioeconomic rights meant that freedom could not be widely experienced in anything but a merely formal sense of the absence of restraint. In his final manuscript he described as “a sheer illusion” the idea that an unplanned capitalist society offered freedom to each of its citizens on equal terms. In reality, he argued,

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legal imperatives within capitalist society were empty concepts, the changing content of which was imposed by economic relationships and their ensuing patterns of distribution. This meant: The framework of policy in a capitalist system is set by giving power to the owner of the factory or to the proprietor of an estate to use them as they think best . . . . It is, of course, obvious that the “freedom” of the owner of property, and the “freedom” of the worker whom he employs operate on wholly different levels in the absence of equality of bargaining-power between the two. (1952, 79) As the quoted passage indicates, in Laski’s view capitalist democracy posed two main problems regarding the issue of freedom. First, the inability of capitalism to accommodate socioeconomic rights meant that the control over governmental restraints upon freedom was weighted in favor of the privileged class. Second, the absence of those rights meant that people outside of that class were often unable to make constructive use of the formal freedom they did in fact experience. Hence, if capitalism could accommodate democracy in only its weaker, purely political form, then freedom for the many would be both restricted, and devalued. As we have seen, this triadic theory, emphasizing the agent, the presence or absence of restrictions, and the ability or lack thereof to make use of the absence of restrictions, is obscured by Laski’s inability to escape the terminology of positive and negative liberty. It is, however, often rewarding to look beyond the problems of presentation to identify a writer’s intentions. This, as I sought to illustrate, is the case with Laski regarding freedom. As Anne Phillips has recently discussed (2000, 237–9), there is a significant, normative trend in contemporary political thought to escape from some of the traditional ideological stand-offs, not least on the issue of liberty. Laski’s work was characterized by ideological reconciliation (see Lamb and Morrice 2002), and his writings on liberty will serve as a useful source for those who wish to pursue the innovative trend identified by Phillips. As was discussed in the previous section, if he created problems for himself in expressing his ideas on freedom, Laski was clearer on the issue of rights. Now it might be argued that his insistence that rights rested on neither metaphysical foundations nor the judgment of states makes him susceptible to the charge of subjectivity. Laski would not have denied that his judgments were made on subjective grounds. Impartiality is, he argued in his inaugural lecture “On the Study of Politics” of 1926, impossible: “for in the merest selection of material to be considered there is already

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implied a judgement which reflects, however unconsciously, the inevitable bias that each of us will bring” (1940h, 44). One’s perception of a right will vary according to the feasibility at a particular time of fulfilling the requirement in question. His view was that rights themselves reflect the generally accepted demands that develop in response to the capability of society to deliver. The activities of the state should, he argued, be judged “by the degree to which it protects the rights from which it derives the only justification it can have for making us obey it” (1940h, 45–6). A crisis had arisen in the modern state “because the rights protected by it are interpreted too narrowly by the holders of power” (1940h, 46). The problem of interpretation in the field of rights came to the fore of Laski’s mind when, after the Second World War, he was assigned to consider the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which would of course be proclaimed in 1948. He considered it doubtful whether such a declaration would be “universally acceptable until there is a real prospect of resolving the crisis of values before which we stand” (1948a, 81). As was discussed in chapter 7, this problem was particularly profound considering the power of dominant states over others in the international arena. Even if technological progress provided the means universally to a relatively high standard of living, this standard would not be met should a declaration be made in individualist terms: It is, indeed, legitimate to go further and say that if the assumptions behind such a declaration were individualistic, the document would be regarded as a threat to a new way of life by the defenders of historic principles which are now subject to profound challenge. Its effect would be to separate, and not to unify, the groping towards common purposes achieved through common institutions and common standards of behaviour which it is the objective of such a declaration to promote. (1948a, 83) This view of the problem of conflicting conceptions of rights led to a clash in Laski’s thought between its democratic and individualist tenets. His political philosophy was driven largely by his desire to promote both democracy and freedom. Absolute autonomy cannot, however, survive unscathed in association with democracy, which by its nature as collective decisionmaking involves compromise (Beetham 1993, 62–3). Laski sought to achieve such compromise through his rather hazy notion of contingent anarchy as a principle of political obligation. Claiming in his inaugural lecture that the central problem of politics is that of authority and freedom, he stressed that his theory that the social conscience of the individual is the surest guide to

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appropriate conduct amounted to “the contingency of disobedience.” Individuals would refuse to submit to the power of the state in cases where their moral convictions ruled out obedience. As he put it: “The moral obligation to resist, in other words, seems to me the root of social well-being. Now this is, frankly, at once a denial of the sovereignty of the state, and an insistence that power is only valid by winning from those subject to it their free consent to the authority it seeks to exercise” (1940h, 45). This exemplified the problem of satisfactorily combining his belief in essential autonomy with his advocacy of democracy. One approach to this problem would be to reason that democracy could maximize the opportunities for self-determination, which in turn reduce restraints on freedom (Dahl 1989, 89–91). This is a view with which Laski, who sought the means to the maximization of equal autonomy, would have concurred. As he saw it, this would minimize the inclination of people to resist the law on the basis of such autonomy. During his final months he reflected on the problem of implementing such a solution under existing conditions. Capitalist democracy could not accommodate a democratic compromise that, based on social and economic rights, would require substantial interference with the interests of the capitalist class. Since the late nineteenth century the state had faced criticism from the dominant class for planning, which had gradually placed constraints upon capitalist activity. The conviction at the basis of such hostility was, he argued, that state intervention in social or economic life encroached upon the area of the freedom of individual citizens. But, as he suggested: In fact, this is simply not true for the immense mass of mankind. Since it is in general true that larger possessions mean larger power, the greater the concentration of wealth in any community, the greater the privileges those who control this wealth are likely to seek for themselves; and the outcome for those who do not share in this control is more likely to seem like tyranny than freedom. (1952, 78) In this climate the evolution of the suffrage compelled governments to seek to satisfy the increasing demands of the electorate by increasing concessions of welfare. But the failure of governments to satisfy either these demands or those of capitalism was leading, in Laski’s view, to the “steady dissolution of the marriage between capitalism and democracy.” “For,” he opined, “the condition of that marriage was an implied agreement to develop democratic principles in the political sphere, while leaving relatively undisturbed authoritarian forces in the economic” (1952, 86). Of course, as was noted earlier,

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the marriage would survive; it would do so, moreover, even when the advanced capitalist countries proceeded in the 1980s to reel in their concessions to welfare as democratic demands placed increasing strain upon profit (see Glynn 1992). But democracy in anything beyond the political sense is indeed weakened when the economic rights essential to its development come under siege. Moreover, as we shall see in a moment, the fact that political democracy survived was testimony to the processes of legitimation on which Laski focused. What Laski underestimated were the more enduring strengths of those processes. Laski’s work on democracy and freedom raises a point that needs to be emphasized if the nature of his socialism is to be fully appreciated. His point was that even a substantial amount of freedom from the restraint of government would be of little value where socioeconomic conditions restricted opportunities. The development of democracy was essential if ordinary citizens were to enjoy freedom of a far greater value, and this would require social as well as political rights. Exclusion from political power was, he stressed in Liberty in the Modern State, “likely to mean exclusion from that which largely determines the contours of happiness.” As a consequence, he went on, “the more equal are the social rights of citizens, the more likely they are to be able to utilize their freedom in realms worthy of exploration” (1930a, 17). But he never suggested that one must follow a prescribed program, or follow a paternal guide to appropriate activity, in order to be free; this would, of course, have been entirely inconsistent with the stance on individual autonomy, which characterized his political philosophy. For him, rather, the citizen of an egalitarian society “knows that in his effort to attain happiness no barriers impede him differently from their incidence upon others. He may not win his objective, but, at least, he cannot claim that society has so weighted the scale against him as to assure his defeat” (1930a, 19). Reflecting on Laski’s democratic political thought, one might consider its significance with regard to contemporary debates on justice. In particular, it seems that his work might make an important, egalitarian qualification to John Rawls’s groundbreaking work in that field. One of the main features of Rawls’s theory is his “difference principle,” the “intuitive idea” of which is “that the social order is not to establish and secure the more attractive prospects of those better off unless doing so is to the advantage of those less fortunate” (1999, 65). This principle would be chosen by rational individuals in what he calls “the original position,” wherein, behind “a veil of ignorance,” people have no idea of their place and status in society, nor of their intelligence, abilities, and natural assets (Rawls 1999, 15). The difference principle, Rawls insisted, presupposes the principle that “each person is to

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have an equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties for others.” Justice then requires that social and economic inequalities must be arranged in such a way as to be “reasonably expected to be to everyone’s advantage” (the difference principle) and “attached to positions and offices open to all” (1999, 53). Now, Kramnick and Sheerman suggest (1993, 229–30) that Laski anticipated Rawls’s treatment of distributive justice. A similar suggestion is made by Runciman (1997, 203), who quotes Laski’s claim in A Grammar that: “Distinctions of wealth and status must be distinctions to which all men attain and they must be required by the common welfare” (1925a, 157). Furthermore, as Ben Jackson has noted (2003, 100–2), Laski, like Rawls, saw the necessity for incentives, which he thus endorsed. In fact, however, Laski would, I think, have questioned the value for ordinary citizens of the difference principle in its liberal form. According to Rawls, the principle would ensure that whilst some people enjoy liberties of greater worth than those of others, the latter are compensated by the fact that, but for the efforts of those who generate wealth, they may be worse off than they actually are (1999, 179). But Laski would, it seems likely, have stressed that, without the guarantee of socioeconomic rights at the level deemed appropriate given the social capability to provide, the Rawlsian principles would not necessarily lift the barriers that prevent citizens from gaining a just distribution. Those whose wealth depended on inequality could, after all, argue that without the incentives that would entrench or maintain inequality, the poorest would be still worse off. For the difference principle to bring about a just distribution it would need to be extended beyond the basic institutional structure. Laski’s work thus avoids a tendency that Phillips has identified (2000, 241–7) in contemporary egalitarian thought. In their preoccupation with redistribution, many contemporary theorists neglect the entrenched structural inequalities of society. Laski’s work will thus be valuable for those who wish to extend normative theory further into issues of inequality. Theorists concerned with such issues will find it is useful to discuss Laski’s thought along with the socialist ideas proffered many years later by G.A. Cohen (2000, 134–47) who, in response to Rawls, argued that for justice to prevail the difference principle would need to be applied to the everyday activities of people in society. The power of individuals to develop within the rules of the basic institutional structure of society is far from equally distributed. There may well be a redistributive tax system; but the wealthy, talented, or otherwise fortunate might engage in social and economic behavior driven by the maximizing ethos. Low rates of taxes, high salaries, and maximizing behavior might be defended on the grounds that incentives are necessary.

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Cohen argues that this defense overlooks the fact that in a society guided by an egalitarian ethos the difference principle would operate more fully, thus resulting in greater justice in society under the terms set out by Rawls. Laski recognized the value of such an ethos. Although, he argued, the notion of private prosperity was not inherently wrong, the more equal the distribution thereof, the less would such prosperity dominate our minds. People would no longer be “set over against society, either snatching from it some chance opportunity of advantage, or seeking to exploit it to some end which their conscience tells them to be mean and dishonourable” (1925a, 217). This might initially result in a materially poorer society, in which there would be fewer wealthy men: Their disappearance will involve the absence of that conspicuous display which has made so much of our social life seem crude and tawdry. But it will be a society of deeper spiritual values, from which the worst tyranny, that of man over man, will have been banished. For fellowship is possible where men are won to a common service, and they can join together when that by which they live is born in justice. (1925a, 217) Rather than stress the affinities that can be perceived between his work and that of Rawls, it would be more accurate to suggest that Laski’s thought on such matters is closer to that of Macpherson. According to Macpherson, a problem with Rawls’s principles of justice was that their author failed to see that the class inequality in the market system “is bound to be an inequality of power as well as of income, that it allows one class to dominate another” (1973, 92). One issue on which Laski would almost certainly have disagreed with Rawls concerns the international application of principles of justice. Rawls argued that in international affairs it would be fair to place representatives of countries in the original position. The principles that would be chosen would include equality of rights of “independent peoples organized as states,” and “the right of a people to settle its affairs without the intervention of foreign powers” (1999, 332). Rawls’s idea of international justice is one in which each liberal and other decent “people” would be considered free and equal, with a right to self-defense, so long as they protected human rights, observed the duty to assist burdened societies, kept treaties but otherwise did not intervene in the affairs of other such peoples (see Beitz 1999a, 272–5; Caney 2001, 983–6). Laski had rather different ideas. As we have seen, he focused on the role of the state in capitalist-dominated countries, and called for a world society in which state sovereignty would be surrendered. This was

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a point to which he returned frequently after his first lengthy discussion of international organization in A Grammar (1925a). In 1943 he discussed the possibilities for such organization in the coming post-War era. There was a need for “the planned development of a world regarded as a common pool of wealth to which all nations have access, on terms as nearly equal as we can make them.” As he put it: “The administration of the common pool needs common principles of action” (1943a, 221). Although, as we saw in chapter 7, this would involve an international legislature to represent each people, many decisions would be made by international functional bodies. Moreover, the productive relations of each society would need to be changed. There would thus be substantial equality for individuals within nations. Laski’s internationalist thought might in fact be considered closer in principle to cosmopolitan theories, which argue that distributive justice should be pursued on a global scale, than to Rawlsian thought on international justice. Laski’s work is significant in this respect for its ideological underpinnings. Although much contemporary work in this field has emerged largely from the stable of liberal egalitarianism (see Beitz 1999a), there is also a long tradition of socialist cosmopolitanism stretching back to Marx, which not only stresses that capitalism transcends state borders, but also looks ahead to a stateless international community wherein exploitation will have been overcome (see Boucher 1998, 355–6; Brown 1992, 44–6). With his call for an ethos of equality, fellowship, and cooperation; his exploration of forms of social ownership and control; and especially in the 1930s and 1940s his thesis of class dominance, Laski’s socialist cosmopolitanism was presented from a standpoint characterized by his distinctive transgression of ideological boundaries. Hence, one might compare and contrast his cosmopolitanism with that of Charles Beitz (1999b, 143–54 and 200–5), who perceives the evolution of global, economic interdependence involving the social cooperation that is the foundation for distributive justice. On this basis Beitz presents a sophisticated case for an application of principles of distributive justice globally. For Laski, redistribution did not get to the heart of the problem of justice, which was entrenched in structural social inequalities. As Beitz suggests: “An international debate is underway concerning the future structure of world order . . .” (1999b, 5). A contribution that drew upon Laski’s writings would help enrich that debate. A question that might be raised is whether Laski’s critique of capitalist democracy, sovereignty, and existing international relations was based on an unrealistic, utopian assumption—an assumption that the existing global socioeconomic and political order could be transcended by worldwide socialist democracy. Perhaps, one might suggest, the inequalities of capitalist society

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reflect the natural human order, and the purpose of states is to manage the affairs of liberal societies that embody national interests. In that case the capitalist form of democracy would be democracy’s highest practicable form, representing something not unlike what has been described as the “End of History” (Fukuyama 1992). But Laski’s work, and especially his emphasis on the role of sovereignty in the modern capitalist state, exposes the restraints that are imposed upon democracy in the name of artificial national entities. By drawing attention to the functions of organization, supervision, and legitimation within the capitalist form of democracy, his work reveals the transparency of the entity we know as the sovereign state. Sovereignty, the Capitalist State, and the Problem of Rights In the essay he published in 1948 to mark the centenary of the Communist Manifesto, Laski argued that the intention of Marx and Engels had been “to strip the veil from those bourgeois foundations of the existing order the concealment of which is one of the ways in which capitalist civilisation hides its real purposes from the workers whom it makes its slaves” (1948g, 32). What he might have added was that his own work on sovereignty was written with similar intentions. For more than 30 years the artificiality of state sovereignty had been a central theme of his thought. Whilst he had always acknowledged that sovereignty was unquestionable as a legal theory, he had concurrently attacked the notion that sovereignty was an attribute that entitled the state to demand the allegiance of its citizens. He was concerned that the claim to such allegiance rested on a concept of unity that was incompatible with both individual autonomy and societal division. To locate power it was, in his view, necessary to identify the influences that shaped the decisions of the state and government. Sovereignty theory, which was thus practically useless to the study of politics, served only to beatify the existing order. Notwithstanding the constancy of this critique of sovereignty in Laski’s work, there were, as this study has aimed to illustrate, important changes. One of the most fundamental of such changes developed in the 1930s, when he conceded that his earlier pluralist critique of sovereignty was unsatisfactory. This was because he had failed to realize the futility of attempts to reform the capitalist state into a non-sovereign body, which would democratically serve the interests of citizens. To achieve this goal, he now believed, the capitalist system would need to be uprooted. For the remainder of his life he would stress that sovereignty and capitalism were intertwined. Laski’s theory of sovereignty is of great significance now that interdependence is recognized as the principal feature of world politics. This is a feature

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that has led the identity, purpose, and tangibility of sovereign power to be called widely into question (Camilleri and Falk 1992, ch. 9). Sovereignty theory today seems likely to require reformulation in order to account for such issues as the pooling of powers in regional international organizations. John Hoffman has argued (1998) that the modernist idea of state sovereignty is flawed by the conflicting notions of absolute power and democratic limits on power. He proposes a post-statist conception in which sovereignty, based on self-determination, is located with individuals in their various local, regional, national, and global relations. But the danger is that this would be a merely formal conception if the economic realities of global capitalism impinged on the efforts of individuals to determine equally their own lives. Such a formal conception might in fact be emphasized as a means to legitimate actual inequality in the present era, involving the replacement of welfarism with market capitalism. As David Coates has put it, the likely result of such a replacement is a long period in which the achievements of social democracy are ratcheted down, whilst the requirements of capital are ratcheted up (Coates 1999, 659). Capitalism will somehow, if it is to maintain its link with liberal democracy, have to maintain the means to justify class power and suppress the demands that were considered by ordinary people to reflect rights in the age of welfare capitalism. Whether some notion of sovereignty can continue to fulfill this role of legitimation will depend upon the continuation of that notion’s credibility as the international political map changes. The manipulation of the idea of sovereignty is an issue that has been highlighted by scholars who describe state sovereignty as a socially constructed concept (Biersteker and Weber 1996). Laski was astute in bringing this issue to the forefront of intellectual discourse in the early to mid-twentieth century. As chapters 5–7 of this book have illustrated, he was particularly concerned with the interconnection between the domestic and international aspects of sovereignty. His work thus helps call into question the contemporary notion that globalization has come to diminish the role of the state. The state in fact plays an important role in shaping the domestic environment and international procedures upon which the global capitalist economy depends (Panitch 1994). By fabricating an interest that appears to encompass the interests of all classes, sovereignty theory helps legitimate the role of the state in managing the international capitalist economy. Although Laski wrote in a very different era of international crisis, today’s analysts of world affairs might, with the aforementioned issues in mind, at least consider his concerns. His warning of the limitations of sovereignty in masking and legitimating class dominance is curiously resonant. Demands for economic stability do make inroads into democracy as capital accumulation,

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property rights, and the operation of market forces take precedence over needs-based social and economic rights (Ramsay 1997, 164–5). Once the mask of class dominance slips, ideas of societal unity give way to the identification of social division. The external aspect of sovereignty then becomes the legitimating factor that promotes the idea that our state defends our interests against various others. This raises the problem of the neglect of social and economic human rights in other parts of the world. Because of the restrictions upon sovereignty that compliance with such rights involves, such compliance is notoriously difficult to enforce (Brown 2002, 124). Laski’s critique of the attempt to defend and promote human rights in the world of sovereign states is thus still of significance today. The dominant role of capitalism in its marriage with democracy continues to favor sovereignty over the respect for and stringent defense of rights. For the foreseeable future it seems likely that capitalism will maintain its association with the liberal form of democracy. It is, indeed, difficult to see how a far more substantial democracy, wherein socioeconomic rights would redistribute and enrich freedom, would be attainable within the confines of the existing international economy. Laski’s later political thought, which he developed through constant and critical reflection upon his early pluralist ideas, helps expose these fundamental problems of the modern state and society. Indeed, it is his perceptive insights into dilemmas still facing democratic theory and practice that make his political philosophy worthy of retrieval and reappraisal. It was his willingness to constantly review and revise his ideas that was the source of his creativity in the analysis of liberal democracy and the modern state in the era of international capitalism. What, above all, his work helps establish is that capitalism is compatible with only a severely truncated form of democratic government, and that the state is crucial to the legitimation of the underdevelopment of democracy.

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Archive Sources Braunthal Papers (BP), Internationaal Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam. Fabian Society Papers (FSP), British Library of Political and Economic Science, London. Laski Collection (LC), Internationaal Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam. Laski Lecture Notes (LLN), British Library of Political and Economic Science, London. Laski Papers (LP), Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull. Laski Papers (LP), National Museum of Labour History, Manchester. MacDonald Papers (MP), John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester.

Works by Harold J. Laski (1915) “The Personality of the State,” The Nation 22 July: 115–17. (1916) “The Apotheosis of the State,” The New Republic 22 July: 302–4. (1917) Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty. New Haven: Yale University Press. (1919) Authority in the Modern State. New Haven: Yale University Press. (1920a) “Guild Socialism and the State,” The New Republic 30 June: 154–5. (1920b) “Parliament and Revolution,” The New Republic 19 May: 383–4. (1920c) “Democracy at the Crossroads,” The Yale Review 9: 788–803. (1920d) Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham. London: Williams and Norgate. (1921a) The Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays. London: Allen and Unwin. (1921b) “Recent Contributions to Political Science,” Economica 1, 1: 87–91. (1921c) “Introduction,” to Léon Duguit, Law in the Modern State. London: Allen and Unwin: ix–xliv.

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(1922a) “The Civil Service and Parliament,” in Lord Haldane et al., The Development of the Civil Service: Lectures Delivered Before the Society of Civil Servants. London: P.S. King and Son. (1922b) Karl Marx: An Essay. London: Fabian Society and Allen and Unwin. (1922c) The State in the New Social Order. London: Fabian Society. (1923) “Lenin and Mussolini,” Foreign Affairs 2, September: 43–54. (1924a) “Introduction,” to John Stuart Mill, Autobiography. London: Oxford University Press. (1924b) “Introduction,” to Junius Brutus, A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants. London: G. Bell and Sons. (1925a) A Grammar of Politics. London: Allen and Unwin. (1925b) “Political Science in Great Britain,” The American Political Science Review 19, February: 96–9. (1925c) The Problem of a Second Chamber. London: Fabian Society. (1925d) Socialism and Freedom. London: Fabian Society. (1926a) “The British General Strike,” The Nation 16 June: 663–5. (1926b) “The General Strike and the Constitution,” Labour Magazine 5 July: 103–5. (1927a) “Present Tendencies in British Politics,” The New Republic 13 July: 192–3. (1927b) Communism. London: Thornton Butterworth. (1927c) “International Government and National Sovereignty,” in Geneva Institute of International Relations (ed.), Problems of Peace. London: Oxford University Press. (1928a) “The Value and Defects of the Marxist Philosophy,” Current History 29, October: 23–9. (1928b) “The Present Evolution of the Parliamentary System,” in Harold J. Laski et al., The Development of the Parliamentary System in Our Times. Geneva: Payot et Cie. (1928c) The British Cabinet: A Study of Its Personnel 1801–1924. London: Fabian Society. (1928d) The Recovery of Citizenship. London: Ernest Benn. (1928e) “Bosanquet’s Theory of the General Will,” Mind, Matter and Purpose: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary 8: 45–61. (1929a) “England in 1929,” The Yale Review 18: 417–36. (1929b) “The New Test for British Labor,” Foreign Affairs 8, 1: 69–83. (1929c) “Law and the State,” Economica 9, 27: 267–95. (1930a) Liberty in the Modern State. London: Faber and Faber. (1930b) “The Prospects of Constitutional Government,” The Political Quarterly 1, July/September: 307–25. (1930c) The Dangers of Obedience and Other Essays. New York: Harper and Brothers. (1930d) “Aristocracy Still the Ruling Class in England,” Current History 32, July: 666–73. (1930e) The Socialist Tradition in the French Revolution. London: Fabian Society and Allen and Unwin. (1930f ) Justice and the Law. London: Ethical Union.

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Index

This index includes Laski’s writings mentioned by title in the main text. For a full list of his works to which either direct or indirect reference is made in this book, see the bibliography. Abyssinia, 143, 144 Acton, Lord, 71, 84 Alcan Highway, 159 Angell, Norman, 15, 138–41, 161–2, 163 Great Illusion, The, 139–41 Aquinas, Saint Thomas, 149 Aristotle, 149 associationalism, 1, 12, 18, 25–6, 45, 46, 182 see also pluralism Atlantic Charter, 162, 165 Attlee, Clement, 12 Austin, John, 95–6 Australia, 159 Baldwin, Stanley, 27 Bank of England, 58 Barker, Ernest, 7, 11 Bauer, Otto, 38 Beetham, David, 104 Beitz, Charles, 190 Belgium, 121 Beloff, Max, 1 Bentham, Jeremy, 6, 58–9 Berlin, Isaiah, 70, 89 Bernstein, Eduard, 180 Bhattachargee, Arun, 8 Bloch, Joseph, 29, 37

Bodin, Jean, 95, 101 Bolsheviks, 89 Bosanquet, Bernard, 73–4 Brady, Robert A., 36 Brailsford, Henry Noel, 138, 140–1, 163 Braunthal, Julius, 11 Brinton, Henry, 140 Does Capitalism Cause War?, 140–2 Britain, 6, 21, 33, 38, 41–2, 47–9, 55, 87, 100, 116, 118, 124, 135, 139, 152, 158, 162, 165, 176, 179, 182 Board of Trade, 124 cabinet, 24, 58 civil service, 19, 21, 49, 58 commonwealth, 116 constitution, 31, 38, 39–40 empire, 49, 144, 163 Foreign Office, 58, 137 House of Commons, 21, 32 House of Lords, 21, 49 Marxism in, 10 parliamentary system, 18 1931 Crisis in, 18, 32–3, 38, 64, 127, 139, 182 British Broadcasting Corporation, 49 Brown, Chris, 2 Bull, Hedley, 120

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Canada, 159 Carr, E.H., 15, 117, 132–5, 145, 157–8, 160, 163 Conditions of Peace, 157 Twenty Years’ Crisis, The, 132, 145 Catlin, George, 8 Charter of San Francisco, see United Nations Charter China, 138, 162, 165 Churchill, Winston, 12, 42, 166 citizenship, 11, 61–5, 134 civitas maxima, 116, 128, 130, 142, 172 Clark, Ian, 118 Coates, David, 192 Cochran, Molly, 129 Cohen, G.A., 188–9 Cole, G.D.H., 5, 6, 19–20, 22, 25, 131, 158 Guild Socialism Restated, 20 World of Labour, The, 20 Cole, M.I., 131 communism, 23, 26, 30, 32, 37, 86, 89, 143, 166 Communist International, 144 Communist Party (British), 28 Conciliar Movement, 106–7 Conservative Party (British), 12, 27, 31, 39, 42, 43 contingent anarchy, 52–3, 60, 185 cosmopolitanism, 15, 121, 122, 125, 126–30, 136, 148, 151, 172, 173, 190 Cripps, Sir Stafford, 39 Crosland, C.A.R., 4, 182 Dahl, Robert A., 55–7, 62 and Strong Principle of Equality, 55–6, 62 Deane, Herbert, 3, 5, 8, 15, 25, 29, 32, 33, 36–7, 45–6, 75, 81, 84, 85–7, 103, 112, 177, 178

democracy associationalist, 12 capitalist, 1, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17, 30, 33, 35, 38, 43–4, 45–68 passim, 69, 87–91, 102, 104–5, 107–8, 111, 113, 116, 165, 175, 176, 178, 179, 180, 181, 184, 186, 190–1 cosmopolitan, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129 demokratia, 55 economic, 135, 138, 142 egalitarian, 54–6, 60, 165 and freedom, 4–5, 9–11, 13–16, 18, 24, 42, 45, 47, 56–7, 67, 68, 69–71, 75, 77, 82–91, 119, 132, 144, 165–6, 169, 171, 183–8, 193 global, see international global democratic system, 122 industrial, 19, 78 international, 9, 45, 112, 132, 135, 152, 167 liberal, 3, 34, 35, 38, 43, 45, 47, 56–7, 66–7, 82, 104, 107, 111, 157, 160, 176, 181, 192, 193 parliamentary, 33, 35 pluralist, 112 political, 23, 33, 38, 41, 48, 49, 50, 60, 66–7, 68, 86, 105, 107, 113, 129, 165, 168, 178, 180, 184, 187 and rights, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 45, 46, 52, 55, 56–8, 60–8, 125, 180–3, 186–7 social, 4, 16, 34, 77, 131, 176, 180, 182–3, 192 world order, democratic, see democracy, international Dewey, John, 5 Dryzek, John, 128 Duguit, Léon, 96–8 Les transformations du droit public, 97 Dutt, R. Palme, 15, 38, 143–4, 153

Index Egypt, 138 Elster, Jon, 8 Engels, Frederick, 12, 29, 37, 119, 191 English school, 2, 120, 163, 172, 173 equality economic, see socioeconomic egalitarian ethos, 189 egalitarian society, see equal society equal society, 48, 112, 187 international, 128–30 intrinsic, 55 political, 51, 64, 78, 180–1 social, see socioeconomic socioeconomic, 11, 30, 51, 57, 62–3, 64, 68, 78, 180–1 substantive condition of, 45, 70 European Union, 149 Fabianism, 8, 117 Fabian Society, 31, 117 fascism, 7, 18, 23, 26, 28, 35–8, 67–8, 79, 127, 130, 131, 143–4, 147, 151, 153, 154 federalism, 41, 149, 151, 156, 157, 158–60, 177 Field, G.C., 106, 109 Figgis, J.N., 5, 6 Fisher, H.A.L., 7 Four Freedoms, 148, 161–6, 169, 171, 176, 183 Fox, Ralph, 28 France, 7, 26, 49, 168, 179 freedom of association, 60, 62, 169 and barbarism, 151 businessmen on, 40 and democracy, 4–5, 9–11, 13–16, 18, 24, 42, 45, 47, 56–7, 67, 68, 69–71, 75, 77, 82–91, 119, 132, 144, 165–6, 169, 171, 183–8, 193 economic, 77–8, 82–3, 162 of education, 60

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of expression, see of speech from fear, 161, 169 and global problems and opportunities, 147–8, 175 intellectual, 161 and international society, 144 as natural right, 59 negative, 14, 69–91 passim personal, 77–8 political, 56–7, 77–8, 82, 161 positive, 14, 69–91 passim, 164 private, see personal of religious belief, see of worship and rights, 10, 11, 16, 63, 72, 77–8, 82, 169, 176, 183–4, 188 and security, 68, 77, 78, 82–3, 85, 89, 112, 142, 164, 169, 170 and socialism, 6, 12, 14, 16, 20, 69, 74, 77, 82, 87, 177, 187 of speech, 36, 60, 61, 62, 161–2, 169 spiritual, 23 and the state, 21, 25, 34, 62, 69–91 passim, 101, 112, 119, 144, 171, 186 and tolerance, 142, 144 triadic, 72, 80–1 from want, 161–2, 169 of worship, 161, 162 French Revolution (1789), 64, 105, 107 functional groups, see functionalism functional independence, see functionalism functionalism, 6, 15, 18–19, 20, 25, 61, 99, 123–4, 129, 148, 155, 156, 157–80, 190 functional power, see functionalism Galton, F.W., 31 General Strike, 7, 18, 26–8, 30, 32, 79, 176 Gentile, Giovanni, 79

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Index

Germany, 32, 38, 83, 105, 118, 131, 144 global capitalist system/order, see international capitalist system global economic system, see global political economy global political economy, 126, 136 globalization, 127, 136–7, 182, 192 Goebbels, Dr, 86 Gold Standard, 27, 31 Green, T.H., 60, 71, 72–3, 75, 76 Greenleaf, W.H., 8, 81 Haldane, Viscount, 7, 21, 25 Hastings, Sir Patrick, 43 Hawkins, Carroll, 3 Hayek, F.A., 82–3, 84 Hegel, G.W.F., 6 Held, David, 125, 126, 127, 128, 156 Hirst, Paul, 26 Hitler, Adolf, 12, 32–3, 35, 36, 42, 82, 83, 85, 89, 105, 130, 144, 149, 151, 153, 155, 160, 162, 170, 179 Hobbes, Thomas, 58–9, 95 Hobhouse, L.T., 6, 76–7, 158 Hoffman, John, 192 holism, 8, 9 Holmes, Justice Oliver Wendell, Jr, 13, 46, 79, 97, 118, 124, 125 human nature, 3, 14, 82 imperialism, 117, 130, 132, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142, 143–4, 153, 156, 163 India, 165, 179 inequality, 14, 29, 34, 51, 60–4, 66, 75, 122, 140, 155, 177, 181, 182, 188, 189, 190, 192 international capitalist system, 1, 9, 35, 113, 119, 139, 192 international functionalist system, see functionalism International Labour Office, 123

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 163 International Polity Movement, 139 Italy, 7, 26, 38, 79, 105, 143 Jackson, Ben, 188 Jackson, Robert, 172 James, William, 5 Japan, 7, 143 justice, 26, 62, 63, 77, 100, 141, 142, 180, 183, 187–90 Keynesianism, 82 Kramnick, Isaac, 188 Laborde, Cécile, 20, 97 Labour Party (British), 12, 19, 23, 30, 31, 32, 34–5, 38–9, 41–2, 43, 49, 58, 89, 117, 139, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 155, 161, 179, 182 Old World and the New Society, The, 161 Laski, Frida (née Kerry), 5, 30, 97 Laski, Harold “Acton Redivivus” (unpublished), 84 American Democracy, The, 41, 50, 159 American Presidency, The, 41, 162 “Aristocracy Still the Ruling Class in England”, 58 Authority in the Modern State, 60, 71 “Choosing the Planners”, 85–6 Communism, 28, 29 Communist Manifesto: Socialist Landmark, 180 “Dangers of Obedience, The”, 53 Decline of Liberalism, The, 107 “Democracy”, 51, 64 Democracy in Crisis, 9, 33, 34, 64–5, 104–5, 108 “Economic Foundations of Peace, The”, 131, 134, 137, 141 Faith, Reason and Civilisation, 88

Index Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays, The, 18, 21, 25, 107 Grammar of Politics, A, 6, 7, 10, 13, 25, 28, 36, 46, 47, 49, 52, 54, 58, 60, 61–2, 63, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75–6, 77, 80–1, 86, 98, 101, 105, 111, 117, 118–20, 121–4, 126, 130, 176, 177–8, 188, 190 Introduction to Politics, An, 53, 63, 100 “Is This An Imperialist War?” 153 “Law and the State”, 99, 128 Liberty in the Modern State, 9, 52–3, 57, 70, 79–81, 83, 89, 142, 143, 169, 187 Limitations of the Expert, The, 83 Nationalism and the Future of Civilization, 101, 129, 130 “Need for a European Revolution, The”, 153 “On the Study of Politics”, 184–5 Parliamentary Government in England, 39, 47 “Plea for Equality, A”, 54 “Pluralistic State, The”, 18–19, 60, 61 Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham, 59 “Problem of Administrative Areas, The”, 18–19, 21, 60 Recovery of Citizenship, The, 62 Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, 11, 42–3, 50, 85–6, 88, 112, 156–7, 163, 164–5 “Revolution by Consent”, 42 Rise of European Liberalism, The, 64–6, 105–7 Socialism and Freedom, 77 Socialism as Internationalism, 171 State in the New Social Order, The, 24, 25

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State in Theory and Practice, The, 10, 36–7, 64–6, 83, 103, 105, 108–10, 137, 142 Strategy of Freedom, The, 162 What is Democracy? 57 Where Do We Go from Here? 42, 154–5 Will Planning Restrict Freedom? 88 Laslett, Peter, 4 League of Nations, 9, 15, 116–27, 127, 129, 130, 135, 143, 145, 150, 151, 152, 154, 155, 167, 170, 178 Leninism, 23, 28 liberal democratic theory, see democracy, liberal liberal ideology, see liberalism liberalism, 4, 9, 10, 11, 32, 46, 55, 65, 66–7, 77, 87, 102, 105–7, 111, 126, 133, 134, 139, 161, 162, 188, 189, 190, 191 Liberal Party (British), 19, 30, 31 liberty, see freedom Lindsay, A.D., 6, 7 Lloyd George, David, 21 Locke, John, 59–60 Lukes, Steven, 101 MacCallum, Gerald, 70 MacDonald, Ramsay, 30, 31 MacIver, R.M., 101 Mackenzie, Norman, 93 Macmahon Ball, W., 53 Macpherson, C.B., 66–7, 189 Maitland, F.W., 6 Manchuria, 143 Mannheim, Karl, 133–4 Marxism, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 23, 24, 27–38 passim, 45, 79, 84, 87, 91, 93, 99, 100–4, 106, 111, 126, 127, 135, 151, 170, 178 neo-Marxism, 34, 102

216

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Index

Marx, Karl, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 24, 26, 28, 29, 37, 100, 106, 119, 151, 190, 191 May, John D., 56 Mexico, 138, 159 Miliband, Ralph, 16, 17, 29, 33, 38, 48, 102, 182 Mill, John Stuart, 71, 76, 139 Mitrany, David, 15, 123, 155, 158–60 monism, 14, 19, 25, 73, 94, 97, 101, 112 Mussolini, Benito, 26, 37, 79, 83, 105, 149, 151 National Government, 31–2 National Health Service, 179 nationalism, 132, 139, 140, 150, 156, 158, 162, 163 Nazis, 35–6, 131, 133 New Deal, 18, 40–1, 49, 135, 159 Newman, Michael, 32, 116 New Statesman and Nation, 140 Noel-Baker, Philip J., 148, 150, 152 Northedge, F.S., 3 obligation, 52–5, 63, 89, 113, 179, 185, 186 Optional Clause, 148 Paul, Darel E., 172 Parekh, Bhikhu, 54, 56 Peretz, Martin, 113 Permanent Court of International Justice, 148 Phillips, Anne, 184, 188 Phillips, Morgan, 161 pluralism, 1, 3, 4, 5–10, 12, 13, 17, 18–20, 22, 25, 29, 41, 45, 46–7, 61, 71, 91, 93–4, 97, 99, 101–2, 111–12, 148, 158, 176, 178, 182, 191, 193 Pogge, Thomas, 128

Potsdam, 12 Poulantzas, Nicos, 102 Quadragesimo Anno (1931), 149 rationalization doctrine, 119 Rawls, John, 187–9 Red Cross Organization, 123 Reformation, the, 105, 107, 121, 153 relative autonomy, 17, 34, 66, 166, 168, 182 revolution, 12, 23–4, 26, 27–8, 30, 31, 32, 35, 38, 42, 43, 60, 143, 153, 154, 157, 160–1, 166, 179 revolution by consent, 30, 38–44, 144, 147, 152–4, 155, 170, 179 Rich, Paul, 126 rights and democracy, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 45, 46, 52, 55, 56–8, 60–8, 125, 180–3, 186–7 economic, see socioeconomic foundationalist theories of, 59–60, 184 and freedom, 10, 11, 16, 63, 72, 77–8, 82, 169, 176, 183–4, 188 human, 9, 148, 166, 167–70, 176, 185, 189, 193 and international politics, 15, 125, 136, 147–8, 189 legal theory of, 58–9, 101 Lockean natural, 59–60 political, 68, 167, 176, 187 of property, 24, 47, 59–60, 66, 177, 193 social, see socioeconomic and socialism, 45, 58, 68, 82, 187 socioeconomic, 10, 61, 64, 65, 68, 167, 180–1, 183–4, 186–7, 193 and the state, 7, 9, 10, 54–5, 60, 61–2, 66, 82, 101, 135, 176, 178, 184–5 of the state, 62, 168

Index Rio Grande Project, 159 Robson, William A., 53 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 40–1, 49, 131, 135, 148, 157, 159, 161–6, 176, 183 and Four Freedoms, 148, 161, 176, 183 and New Deal, 40–1, 49, 135, 159 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 6, 73, 96 Royal Commission (Samuel), 27 Royal Commission (Sankey), 21–2, 24 Runciman, David, 21, 188 Russia, see Soviet Union Salvemini, Gaetano, 37 Sankey, Sir John, 21 Scandinavia, 49 Schumpeter, Joseph A., 51–2, 55, 95 Seeley, J.R., 71 Sheerman, Barry, 188 Smith, Adam, 72 socialism Carr’s hopes for, 145 corporatism, socialist, 7 cosmopolitanism, socialist (see also and internationalism), 190 democracy, socialist, 24, 28, 45, 112, 148, 179, 190 democratic, 2, 7, 9, 17, 74 European, 131 evolutionary (see also parliamentary), 32, 180 and freedom, 6, 12, 14, 16, 20, 69, 74, 77, 82, 87, 177, 187 and French Revolution, 64 and functionalism, 124 government, 40, 49 guild, 5, 19–21, 22 ideal of a Fellowship of Free Peoples, 153 and internationalism, 9, 11, 126, 138, 171 liberal, 127

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and liberalism, 102 libertarian, 8, 69 moderate, 26 and national planning, 159 New Deal as possible basis for, 40 parliamentary, 17, 29–30, 33 party, 39 pluralism, socialist, 20, 45, 158 policy, 39 and pooling of sovereignties, 155 as purpose of A Grammar of Politics, 177 and rights, 45, 58, 68, 82, 187 society, 11, 12, 86, 138 and Soviet Union, 89 and state control, 103 strategy, 39, 49 tradition of, 12 transition to in Britain, 42–3 and war, 132 and world governance, 3 Socialist League, 38–9 Soviet Union, 7, 86, 89, 144, 149, 151, 162, 170, 179 Spain, 7 Spencer, Herbert, 139 Stalin, Josef, 86 state capitalist, 3, 16, 26, 103, 104, 131, 136, 144, 175, 191–3 and freedom, 21, 25, 34, 62, 69–91 passim, 101, 112, 119, 144, 171, 186 nation, 73, 119, 127, 130, 142, 149, 152, 157, 162, 163, 167, 170, 171, 172, 183 pluralist, 112, 115 and power, 7, 13, 36–7, 38, 47, 50, 52, 65, 87, 93, 94, 102, 131, 141, 166, 176, 182, 185 and rights, 7, 9, 10, 54–5, 60, 61–2, 66, 82, 101, 135, 168, 176, 178, 184–5

218

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Index

state—continued socialist, 103, 138 sovereign, 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18, 45, 73, 91, 112, 120, 122, 125, 130, 131, 132, 135, 136, 141, 142, 144, 145, 148, 152, 154, 165, 167, 170, 171, 172, 175, 176, 177, 178, 191, 193 world, 121, 143 Strachey, John, 1, 10, 182 Strange, Susan, 136 subsidiarity, 149 Tawney, R.H., 6, 21–2, 25, 48, 158 Acquisitive Society, The, 6 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 159 Thalheimer, August, 26 Third Way, 183 Thompson, Dennis, 11 Trade Disputes Act (1906), 27 Trade Disputes and Trade Union Act (1927), 27, 30, 49 Trades Union Congress (TUC), 27, 31 Treaty of Versailles, 140 Truman Doctrine, 170 UNESCO, 168 United Nations Charter, 166, 167, 168 United Nations Declaration, 162 United Nations Organization, 126, 148, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167–70, 173 United States, 7, 18, 23, 40, 41, 49, 50–1, 55, 67, 118, 121, 126, 135, 162, 168, 170, 179 Congress, 33, 161, 164 constitution, 40–1 domestic policy, 170 federal system, 18, 149, 159

foreign policy, 161, 170 legal system, 33 Presidency, 41 State Department, 166 Supreme Court, 13, 40, 49, 67, 79 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 9, 168, 176, 185 Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos, 107 Wallas, Graham, 117–18 Great Society, The, 117 war, 38, 42, 117–18, 123, 131–2, 135, 136, 137, 138–45, 147–8, 149, 151, 152, 153, 178 Cold War, 3, 147, 167–70, 171, 173 First World War, 5, 17, 19, 27, 28, 111, 116, 131, 139, 142, 144, 157 Second World War, 15, 18, 37, 41, 46, 70, 84, 105, 113, 147–73 passim, 180, 185 Weale, Albert, 52 Webb, Sidney, 21 Wells, H.G., 158 Wilkinson, Ellen, 161 Woolf, Leonard, 15, 110, 117, 131–2, 138, 141, 148, 150–2 Barbarians at the Gate, 151 Intelligent Man’s Guide to World Peace, The (ed.), 131 International Government, 150 World Bank, 163 World Economic Conference (1933), 131 World governance, 152, 157 Zimmern, Alfred, 116, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126 Zylstra, Bernard, 8, 116