Harold Laski
Encyclopedia
Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist
, author
, and lecturer
, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party
during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950.
on 30 June 1893 to Nathan Laski and Sarah Laski (née Frankenstein). Nathan Laski was a Jewish cotton merchant and a member of the Liberal Party
. His elder brother was Neville Laski
. A cousin was the author and publisher Anthony Blond
. Harold did his schooling at the Manchester Grammar School
. In 1911, he studied Eugenics
under Karl Pearson
for six months. The same year he met and married Frida Kerry, a lecturer of Eugenics. His marriage to Frida, a gentile and eight years his senior antagonized his family. He also repudiated his faith in Judaism
, claiming that Reason prevented him from believing in God. In 1914, he obtained an undergraduate degree in History from New College, Oxford
. He was awarded the Beit memorial prize during his time at New College. He failed his medical eligibility tests and thus missed fighting in World War I
. After graduation he worked briefly at the Daily Herald under George Lansbury
. His daughter Diana was born in 1916.
and also started lecturing at Harvard University
. He also lectured at Yale University
during 1919-20. Laski's outspoken support of the Boston Police Strike
of 1919, earned him severe criticism. After his brief involvement with the founding of The New School for Social Research in 1919, Laski returned to England in 1920 and took up a job at the London School of Economics
(LSE). Six years later he was made professor of political science at LSE, a post he held till his death in 1950. He also lectured regularly in America and wrote for The New Republic
. During his years in Harvard, he became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes
, Herbert Croly
and Morris A. Cohen. Apart from his academic work at the LSE, Laski was a executive member of the socialist Fabian Society
during 1922-1936. In 1936 he co-founded the Left Book Club
along with Victor Gollancz
and John Strachey. He was a prolific writer producing a number of books and essays throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
While at the LSE in the 1930s, Laski developed a relationship with scholars from the Institute for Social Research
, more commonly known today as the Frankfurt School
. In 1933, with almost all the Institute's members by that time in exile due to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Laski was among a number of British socialists, including Sidney Webb and R.H. Tawney, to arrange for the establishment of a London office for the Institute's use. After the Institute's move to Columbia University
in 1934, Laski was one of its sponsored guest lecturers invited to New York. Laski also played a role in bringing Franz Neumann
to join the Institute. After fleeing Germany
almost immediately after Hitler's takeover, Neumann did graduate work in political science under Laski and Karl Mannheim
at the LSE, writing his dissertation on rise and fall of the rule of law
. It was on Laski's recommendation that Neumann was then invited to join the Institute in 1936.
As a lecturer, Laski was hugely popular amongst his students. Describing Laski's popularity, Kingsley Martin
wrote:
Ralph Miliband
, another student of Laski, praised his teaching as follows:
and believed in a planned economy based on the public ownership of the means of production. He also believed since the capitalist class would not acquiesce in its own liquidation, the cooperative commonwealth was not likely to be attained without violence. But he also had a commitment to civil liberties, free speech and association, and representative democracy. Initially he believed that the League of Nations
would bring about a "international democratic system". However from the late 1920s his political beliefs became radicalized and he believed that it was necessary to go beyond capitalism to "transcend the existing system of sovereign states". In his last years he was disillusioned by the Cold War
and the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia
. George Orwell
described him as "A socialist by allegiance, and a liberal by temperament".
. In 1931 he left the Labour party after becoming disillusioned with party politics. In 1932, Laski joined the Socialist League
. In 1937, he was involved in the failed attempt by the Independent Labour Party
and the Communist Party of Great Britain
to form a Popular Front to bring down the Conservative government of Neville Chamberlain
. During 1934-45 he served as an alderman in the Fulham
Borough Council and also the chairman of the libraries committee. In 1937, he rejoined the Labour party and became a member of its National Executive Committee, of which he remained a member till 1949. Laski suffered a nervous breakdown during the World War II
years, brought about by overwork. In 1944, he chaired the Labour party conference and served as the party's chair during 1945-46.
During the 1945 general elections
Laski was involved in a libel trial which was used by the Conservative party to criticise Clement Attlee
. While speaking against the Conservative candidate in Newark
, Nottinghamshire
on 16 June 1945, Laski said "If Labour did not obtain what it needed by general consent, we shall have to use violence even if it means revolution". He was replying to a question posed by a member of the audience, Wentworth Day. The next day accounts of Laski's speech appeared in the Newark Advertiser
and other newspapers. The Conservatives seized this issue and criticised the Labour party for advocating violence. Laski's position as the member of Labour executive committee and a popular member of the LSE faculty meant the issue could do serious damage to Labour party's electoral chances. To mitigate the damage, Laski filed a libel suit against the Conservative Daily Express
newspaper. Appearing for the defense, Patrick Hastings
was able to convince the jury to throw out the case. The jury found for the defendant within forty minutes of deliberations and pronounced the Newark Advertiser's account to be a fair and accurate representation of Laski's speech. Laski met the cost of the case (about £13,000) through public donations.
Though Laski played a prominent role in Labour party winning the 1945 elections, he did not have any practical influence in the Labour government's decision making process. Even before the Newark libel case Laski's relationship with Attlee was a strained one. Laski had once called Attlee "uninteresting and uninspired" in the American press and even tried to remove him by asking for Attlee's resignation in an open letter. He tried to delay the Potsdam Conference
until after Attlee's position was clarified. He tried to bypass Attlee by directly dealing with Winston Churchill
. When Laski began laying down guidelines for the new Labour government's foreign policy, Attlee rebuked him:
This rebuke together with the Newark libel case damaged Laski's reputation irreparably. Though he continued to work for the Labour party till the 1950 elections
, he never regained his earlier influence.
, having taught a generation of future Indian leaders at the LSE. According to John Kenneth Galbraith
, "the center of Nehru's thinking was Laski" and "India the country most influenced by Laski's ideas". It is mainly due to his influence that the LSE has a semi-mythological status in India. He was steady in his unremitting advocacy of the independence of India. He was a revered figure to Indian students at the LSE. One Indian Prime Minister
said "in every meeting of the Indian Cabinet there is a chair reserved for the ghost of Professor Harold Laski". His recommendation of K. R. Narayanan
(later President of India) to Jawaharlal Nehru
(then Prime Minister of India), resulted in Nehru appointing Narayanan to the Indian Foreign Service
. In his memory, the Indian government established The Harold Laski Institute of Political Science in 1954 at Ahmedabad
.
Speaking at a meeting organized in Laski's memory by the Indian League at London on 3 May 1950, Nehru praised him as follows:
Laski also educated the outspoken Chinese intellectual and journalist Chu Anping
at LSE. Anping was later prosecuted by the Chinese Communist regime of the 1960s.
Ayn Rand
, in a collection of her essays, The Art of Fiction, remarks that after hearing a talk by Laski in the 1930s, he became for her the personification of the villain Ellsworth Toohey in her novel, The Fountainhead
. In her words,
In his essay Politics and the English Language
, George Orwell used a section from Laski's book, Essay in Freedom of Expression, as an example of writing which demonstrated the "mental vices" suffered by English speakers.
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and lecturer
Lecturer
Lecturer is an academic rank. In the United Kingdom, lecturer is a position at a university or similar institution, often held by academics in their early career stages, who lead research groups and supervise research students, as well as teach...
, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950.
Early life
Harold Laski was born in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
on 30 June 1893 to Nathan Laski and Sarah Laski (née Frankenstein). Nathan Laski was a Jewish cotton merchant and a member of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
. His elder brother was Neville Laski
Neville Laski
Neville Jonas Laski, QC was an English judge and leader of Anglo-Jewry.- Family :He came from a distinguished family. His younger brother was Harold Laski...
. A cousin was the author and publisher Anthony Blond
Anthony Blond
Anthony Bernard Blond was a British publisher and author.Blond was the elder son of Major Neville Blond CMG, OBE, who was a cousin of Harold Laski. His mother was from a Manchester Sephardic Jewish family; they divorced when Blond was a child. Born in Sale, Cheshire, Blond was educated at Eton,...
. Harold did his schooling at the Manchester Grammar School
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School is the largest independent day school for boys in the UK . It is based in Manchester, England...
. In 1911, he studied Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
under Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the disciplineof mathematical statistics....
for six months. The same year he met and married Frida Kerry, a lecturer of Eugenics. His marriage to Frida, a gentile and eight years his senior antagonized his family. He also repudiated his faith in Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, claiming that Reason prevented him from believing in God. In 1914, he obtained an undergraduate degree in History from New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
. He was awarded the Beit memorial prize during his time at New College. He failed his medical eligibility tests and thus missed fighting in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. After graduation he worked briefly at the Daily Herald under George Lansbury
George Lansbury
George Lansbury was a British politician, socialist, Christian pacifist and newspaper editor. He was a Member of Parliament from 1910 to 1912 and from 1922 to 1940, and leader of the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935....
. His daughter Diana was born in 1916.
Academic career
In 1916, Laski was appointed as lecturer of modern history at McGill UniversityMcGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
and also started lecturing at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He also lectured at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
during 1919-20. Laski's outspoken support of the Boston Police Strike
Boston Police Strike
In the Boston Police Strike, the Boston police rank and file went out on strike on September 9, 1919 in order to achieve recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions...
of 1919, earned him severe criticism. After his brief involvement with the founding of The New School for Social Research in 1919, Laski returned to England in 1920 and took up a job at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
(LSE). Six years later he was made professor of political science at LSE, a post he held till his death in 1950. He also lectured regularly in America and wrote for The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
. During his years in Harvard, he became friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
, Herbert Croly
Herbert Croly
Herbert David Croly was an intellectual leader of the Progressive Movement as an editor, and political philosopher and a co-founder of the magazine The New Republic in early twentieth-century America...
and Morris A. Cohen. Apart from his academic work at the LSE, Laski was a executive member of the socialist Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
during 1922-1936. In 1936 he co-founded the Left Book Club
Left Book Club
The Left Book Club, founded in 1936, was a key left-wing institution of the late 1930s and 1940s in the United Kingdom set up by Stafford Cripps, Victor Gollancz and John Strachey to revitalise and educate the British Left. The Club's aim was to "help in the struggle For world peace and against...
along with Victor Gollancz
Victor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz was a British publisher, socialist, and humanitarian.-Early life:Born in Maida Vale, London, he was the son of a wholesale jeweller and nephew of Rabbi Professor Sir Hermann Gollancz and Professor Sir Israel Gollancz; after being educated at St Paul's School, London and taking...
and John Strachey. He was a prolific writer producing a number of books and essays throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
While at the LSE in the 1930s, Laski developed a relationship with scholars from the Institute for Social Research
Institute for Social Research
The Institute for Social Research is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory....
, more commonly known today as the Frankfurt School
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School refers to a school of neo-Marxist interdisciplinary social theory, particularly associated with the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main...
. In 1933, with almost all the Institute's members by that time in exile due to Adolf Hitler's rise to power, Laski was among a number of British socialists, including Sidney Webb and R.H. Tawney, to arrange for the establishment of a London office for the Institute's use. After the Institute's move to Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1934, Laski was one of its sponsored guest lecturers invited to New York. Laski also played a role in bringing Franz Neumann
Franz Neumann
Franz Neumann may refer to:*Franz Ernst Neumann, German physicist and mathematician*Franz Leopold Neumann, German-American legal scholar and theoretician...
to join the Institute. After fleeing Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
almost immediately after Hitler's takeover, Neumann did graduate work in political science under Laski and Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim
Karl Mannheim , or Károly Mannheim in the original writing of his name, was a Jewish Hungarian-born sociologist, influential in the first half of the 20th century and one of the founding fathers of classical sociology and a founder of the sociology of knowledge.-Life:Mannheim studied in Budapest,...
at the LSE, writing his dissertation on rise and fall of the rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
. It was on Laski's recommendation that Neumann was then invited to join the Institute in 1936.
As a lecturer, Laski was hugely popular amongst his students. Describing Laski's popularity, Kingsley Martin
Kingsley Martin
Basil Kingsley Martin was a British journalist who edited the left-leaning political magazine the New Statesman from 1930 to 1960....
wrote:
Ralph Miliband
Ralph Miliband
Ralph Miliband , born Adolphe Miliband, was a Belgian-born British sociologist known as a prominent Marxist thinker...
, another student of Laski, praised his teaching as follows:
Ideology and political convictions
Laski was a proponent of MarxismMarxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and believed in a planned economy based on the public ownership of the means of production. He also believed since the capitalist class would not acquiesce in its own liquidation, the cooperative commonwealth was not likely to be attained without violence. But he also had a commitment to civil liberties, free speech and association, and representative democracy. Initially he believed that the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
would bring about a "international democratic system". However from the late 1920s his political beliefs became radicalized and he believed that it was necessary to go beyond capitalism to "transcend the existing system of sovereign states". In his last years he was disillusioned by the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
The Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948 – in Communist historiography known as "Victorious February" – was an event late that February in which the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet backing, assumed undisputed control over the government of Czechoslovakia, ushering in over four decades...
. George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
described him as "A socialist by allegiance, and a liberal by temperament".
Political career
Laski was involved in Labour party politics from the early 1920s. In 1923, he turned down the offer of a parliament seat and cabinet position by Ramsay MacDonaldRamsay MacDonald
James Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
. In 1931 he left the Labour party after becoming disillusioned with party politics. In 1932, Laski joined the Socialist League
Socialist League (UK, 1932)
The Socialist League was a socialist organisation in the United Kingdom.It formed in the 1932 as a split from the Independent Labour Party, opposed to that organisation disaffiliating from the Labour Party. It was led by Stafford Cripps. The League argued for drastic action to be taken by a future...
. In 1937, he was involved in the failed attempt by the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
and the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
to form a Popular Front to bring down the Conservative government of Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
. During 1934-45 he served as an alderman in the Fulham
Fulham
Fulham is an area of southwest London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, SW6 located south west of Charing Cross. It lies on the left bank of the Thames, between Putney and Chelsea. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London...
Borough Council and also the chairman of the libraries committee. In 1937, he rejoined the Labour party and became a member of its National Executive Committee, of which he remained a member till 1949. Laski suffered a nervous breakdown during the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
years, brought about by overwork. In 1944, he chaired the Labour party conference and served as the party's chair during 1945-46.
During the 1945 general elections
United Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
Laski was involved in a libel trial which was used by the Conservative party to criticise Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
. While speaking against the Conservative candidate in Newark
Newark (UK Parliament constituency)
Newark is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Since 1885, it has elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election....
, Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
on 16 June 1945, Laski said "If Labour did not obtain what it needed by general consent, we shall have to use violence even if it means revolution". He was replying to a question posed by a member of the audience, Wentworth Day. The next day accounts of Laski's speech appeared in the Newark Advertiser
Newark Advertiser
The Newark Advertiser is a British regional newspaper, owned by Advertiser Group Newspapers, for the town of Newark-on-Trent and surrounding areas.- History :...
and other newspapers. The Conservatives seized this issue and criticised the Labour party for advocating violence. Laski's position as the member of Labour executive committee and a popular member of the LSE faculty meant the issue could do serious damage to Labour party's electoral chances. To mitigate the damage, Laski filed a libel suit against the Conservative Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
newspaper. Appearing for the defense, Patrick Hastings
Patrick Hastings
Sir Patrick Gardiner Hastings KC was a British barrister and politician noted for his long and highly successful career as a barrister and his short stint as Attorney General. He was educated at Charterhouse School until 1896, when his family moved to continental Europe...
was able to convince the jury to throw out the case. The jury found for the defendant within forty minutes of deliberations and pronounced the Newark Advertiser's account to be a fair and accurate representation of Laski's speech. Laski met the cost of the case (about £13,000) through public donations.
Though Laski played a prominent role in Labour party winning the 1945 elections, he did not have any practical influence in the Labour government's decision making process. Even before the Newark libel case Laski's relationship with Attlee was a strained one. Laski had once called Attlee "uninteresting and uninspired" in the American press and even tried to remove him by asking for Attlee's resignation in an open letter. He tried to delay the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
until after Attlee's position was clarified. He tried to bypass Attlee by directly dealing with Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. When Laski began laying down guidelines for the new Labour government's foreign policy, Attlee rebuked him:
This rebuke together with the Newark libel case damaged Laski's reputation irreparably. Though he continued to work for the Labour party till the 1950 elections
United Kingdom general election, 1950
The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. Despite polling over one and a half million votes more than the Conservatives, the election, held on 23 February 1950 resulted in Labour receiving a slim majority of just five...
, he never regained his earlier influence.
Legacy
Laski had a huge effect on the politics and the formation of IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, having taught a generation of future Indian leaders at the LSE. According to John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Kenneth "Ken" Galbraith , OC was a Canadian-American economist. He was a Keynesian and an institutionalist, a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism...
, "the center of Nehru's thinking was Laski" and "India the country most influenced by Laski's ideas". It is mainly due to his influence that the LSE has a semi-mythological status in India. He was steady in his unremitting advocacy of the independence of India. He was a revered figure to Indian students at the LSE. One Indian Prime Minister
Prime Minister of India
The Prime Minister of India , as addressed to in the Constitution of India — Prime Minister for the Union, is the chief of government, head of the Council of Ministers and the leader of the majority party in parliament...
said "in every meeting of the Indian Cabinet there is a chair reserved for the ghost of Professor Harold Laski". His recommendation of K. R. Narayanan
K. R. Narayanan
Kocheril Raman Narayanan , also known as K. R. Narayanan, was the tenth President of India. He was the first Dalit, and the first Malayali, to have been President....
(later President of India) to Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
(then Prime Minister of India), resulted in Nehru appointing Narayanan to the Indian Foreign Service
Indian Foreign Service
The Indian Foreign Service is the foreign service of India. It is the body of career diplomats of India.The Indian Foreign Service is part of the Central Civil Services of the Government of India...
. In his memory, the Indian government established The Harold Laski Institute of Political Science in 1954 at Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad
Ahmedabad also known as Karnavati is the largest city in Gujarat, India. It is the former capital of Gujarat and is also the judicial capital of Gujarat as the Gujarat High Court has its seat in Ahmedabad...
.
Speaking at a meeting organized in Laski's memory by the Indian League at London on 3 May 1950, Nehru praised him as follows:
Laski also educated the outspoken Chinese intellectual and journalist Chu Anping
Chu Anping
Chu Anping was a Chinese scholar, intellectual, noted liberal journalist and editor of Guancha in the Civil War era of the late 1940s....
at LSE. Anping was later prosecuted by the Chinese Communist regime of the 1960s.
Criticism
Laski has been criticised by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. as "incorrigible teller of tales that exaggerated - sometimes fabricated - his own accomplishments, charms, and triumphs". According to Schlesinger:Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
, in a collection of her essays, The Art of Fiction, remarks that after hearing a talk by Laski in the 1930s, he became for her the personification of the villain Ellsworth Toohey in her novel, The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead
The Fountainhead is a 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and brought her fame and financial success. More than 6.5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide....
. In her words,
"It is true that he was not particularly liberal--that is, he was the most vicious liberal I have ever heard in public, but not blatantly so. He was very subtle and gracious, he rambled on a great deal about nothing in particular--and then he made crucial, vicious points once in a while [...] I thought, "There was my character." [...] Years later, I learned that [his] career was in fact somewhat like Toohey's: he was always the man behind the scenes, much more influential than anybody knew publicly, pulling the strings behind the governments of several countries. Finally he was proved to be a communist, which he did not announce himself as or blatantly sound like."
In his essay Politics and the English Language
Politics and the English Language
"Politics and the English Language" is an essay by George Orwell criticizing "ugly and inaccurate" contemporary written English.Orwell said that political prose was formed "to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Orwell believed...
, George Orwell used a section from Laski's book, Essay in Freedom of Expression, as an example of writing which demonstrated the "mental vices" suffered by English speakers.
Partial bibliography
- Basis of Vicarious Liability (1916) 26 Yale Law JournalYale Law JournalThe Yale Law Journal is a student-run law review affiliated with the Yale Law School. Published continuously since 1891, it is the most widely known of the eight law reviews published by students at Yale Law School...
105 - Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty, 1917
- Authority in the Modern State, 1919, ISBN 1-58477-275-1
- Political Thought in England from LockeJohn LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
to Bentham, 1920 - Karl Marx, 1921
- A Grammar of Politics, 1925
- Communism, 1927
- Liberty in the Modern State, 1930
- "The Dangers of Obedience and Other Essays" 1930
- Democracy in Crisis, 1933
- The State in Theory and Practice, 1935, The Viking Press
- The Rise of Liberalism, 1936
- The American Presidency, 1940
- Reflections On the Revolution of our Time , 1943
- Faith, Reason, and Civilisation, 1944
- The American Democracy, 1948, The Viking PressViking PressViking Press is an American publishing company owned by the Penguin Group, which has owned the company since 1975. It was founded in New York City on March 1, 1925, by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheim...
- The Rise of European Liberalism
See also
- American Studies in BritainAmerican Studies in BritainAmerican Studies as an academic discipline is taught at some British universities and incorporated in several school subjects, such as history, politics and literature. While the United States of America is the focus of most study, American Studies can also include the study of all the Americas,...
- Where do we go from Here? A Proclamation of British Democracy 1940