The Pragmatic Politics of Mr. H. J. Laski

W. Y. Elliott

American Political Science Review, 1924, vol. 18, issue 2, 251-275

Abstract: In all the varied current of contemporary political theory which seems to have set against the conception of unitary sovereignty as the basis of the structure of the state, the work of Mr. H. J. Laski stands out sufficiently to command general attention. Perhaps this is as much because of the arresting fashion in which Mr. Laski has challenged the traditional doctrines of political theory as it is from the positive content of his own theories. He has seized upon the ideas centering about group rights which Drs. Figgis and Maitland have forced so brilliantly upon modern attention, and has made great play with them in developing Mr. Ernest Barker's idea of “The Discredited State.” Because of the radical implications of some of these theories as Mr. Laski has expounded them, political theorists have for some time been waiting for the promised exposition of Mr. Laski's ideas in more systematic form than has yet been offered by any of the historical and critical studies and the two brief introductory chapters of The Problem of Sovereignty and Authority in the Modern State, or even The Foundations of Sovereignty. But as Mr. Laski is professedly a disciple of William James, it is perhaps too much to ask that he throw his ideas into any form that smacks of system and the rationalistic taint which pragmatists seem to attach to system. To the end of his days William James never entertained seriously the idea of giving his “way of looking at things” any more logical arrangement than the form of a series of rather popular lectures—with vast benefit, no doubt, to the “readableness” of his essays, but with equal difficulty to an unambiguous interpretation of what he meant by his suggestions. The similarly casual nature of such connection as has yet bound Mr. Laski's ideas to a single unity may excuse one, then, for finding some difficulty in selecting a method of presentation.

Date: 1924
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