Harold J. Laski

Law and the State

EVERY state in the modern world is a territorial community in the name of which some agent or agents exercise sovereignty. By sovereignty is meant the legal competence to issue orders without a need to refer to a higher authority. The orders so issued constitute law, and are binding upon all who come within their jurisdiction. In some such way as this the modern analytical jurist defines the nature of the state for the purposes of his science. Any explanation of its character is, most usefully, of two kinds. It can be, on the one hand, historical. It is possible to trace the way in which the Respublica Christiawna of the Middle Ages was slowly transformed into the complex of states we know in the modern world, and to show how the demands of unity and order gradually and painfully resulted in the attribution to them of the quality we call sovereignty. Such an explanation has the value of enabling us to see that the modern state is not, either in its form or substance, anything permanent or eternal: it is simply a moment of historical time, obviously born of special needs, and, equally obviously, destined to transformation either when it has ceased to satisfy those needs or when the needs themselves have passed away. The historical study of the state has the great merit of showing us the essentially pragmatic character of all theories about its nature. They are born of the need to satisfy a particular environment, and they die when they cease to render that satisfaction. Alternatively, the jurists explanation of the state may dwell in the realm of formal logic. Making entire abstraction of the facts of any given state, it may seek the quintessential form of which all states are more or less imperfect expressions. It may then say that where there is an authority which fixes the norms of all law, and beyond which, in the search for the origin of such norms, we cannot go, there we have a sovereign state. The content of the norms, or of the orders begotten legally of them, is

The American presidency, an interpretation

With its call for new, revitalized presidential leadership, The American Presidency is as relevant and timely today as when it first appeared in 1940 as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. In addition to providing innovative ideas about the American presidency, Laskis book examines such contemporary, critical issues as the deadlock between the president and Congress, the crucial need for a coherent presidential direction of foreign policy, the relative unimportance of the presidnets cabinet, and the weaknesses of Americas pwer system in dealing with special interest groups.

The Obsolescence of Federalism

No one can travel the length and breadth of the United States without the conviction of its inexpugnable variety. East and West, South and North, its regions are real and different, and each has problems real and different too. The temptation is profound to insist that here, if ever, is the classic place for a federal experiment. Union without unity—except in the Soviet Union and China, has variety ever so fully invited the implications of the famous definition? Geography, climate, culture, all of them seem to have joined their forces to insist that, wherever centralization is appropriate, here, at least, it has no meaning. Tradition demands its absence; history has prohibited its coming. The large unit, as in Lamennais’ phrase, would result in apoplexy at the center and anemia at the extremities. Imposed solutions from a distant Washington, blind, as it must be blind, to the subtle minutiae of local realities, cannot solve the ultimate problems that are in dispute. A creative America must be a federal America. The wider the powers exercised from Washington, the more ineffective will be the capacity for creative administration. Regional wisdom is the clue to the American future. The power to govern must go where that regional wisdom resides. So restrained, men learn by the exercise of responsibility the art of progress. They convince themselves by experiment from below. To fasten a uniformity that is not in nature upon an America destined to variety is to destroy the prospect of an ultimate salvation.

Studies in law and politics

The essays that comprise Studies in Law and Politics are by and large academic. But Laski had a purpose in addition to the purely scholarly: he was eagerly pursuing possibilities for social and political change. Laski sought tirelessly for opportunities to act on those possibilities and, as is the case throughout his work, his academic and political purposes have no clear boundary between them. Studies in Law of Politics was published at a crucial juncture in Laskis ideological metamorphosis. During this period he had become increasingly worried that socialists might not be able to achieve the growth of working-class power. Although the essays contained in the volume cover a wide range of topics, and a wide span of time since the mid-1920s, he brought them into unity by a common approach. Though he does not make his unifying premise immediately evident to his readers, he clearly meant to chart the growth of power of those who had previously been without influence. His goal also was to identify the problems facing growth in a highly modernized society. Studies in Law and Politics reveals Laskis growing realization that the road to socialism might be more difficult than what he had believed when he wrote his pluralist works. The book reflects the mind of a thinker who was not content to write exclusively as an academic or a political activist. His view was that, while progressive reforms have been achieved in the past, they are not easily accomplished, and obstacles to further reforms should not be underestimated. This sober work offers much insight into Laskis intellectual development, as well as the times about which he wrote.

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF MR. JUSTICE HOLMES

JUDGES, as a rule, must approach political problems interstitially, for they do not choose the subjects upon which they are to pronounce. It is rare, therefore, for a judge to exhibit a philosophy of politics which implies more than a series of half-conscious assumptions from which the ingenious student may hope to extract inferences of a general kind. The judge, moreover, is rarely, either by nature or training, a systematic philosopher. His life has been passed in minute attention to the particular; his practical value to the community depends at least as much upon his deliberate avoidance of the universal as upon his search for its attainment. We can hazard a view about the way in which Chief Justice Marshall or Lord Eldon, Sir Edward Coke or Mansfield would have approached the political scheme of things entire; for the circumstances of their period bound them to diverse exposition in varied fields of effort. But, for the most part, the political philosophy of judges is a series of halfarticulate hints which men like Mlontesquieu or Bentham or Savigny must mold into a system. To this general rule, Mr. Justice Holmes is no exception. We know, in fairly rigorous outline, the manner of his approach to political problems; but fate has made the connectionbetween philosophic background and detailed principle inevitably fragmentary in character. The things we might wish to know, his views, for instance, upon the merits and weaknesses of democratic government, his theory of the ultimate nature of the state, his attitude as to the proper limits, if any, of collectivist action, these are not issues susceptible of exhaustive analysis from the Bench. He has had to work within the framework of

A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants

NOTE The Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos has been so long a rare book, that it is hoped this reprint of the translation of 1689 will be useful to teachers of political philosophy. One of the great difficulties of the subject is the fact that the writings of all save the most important thinkers are not available outside the great libraries. This volume fills at least a small gap in the need. If it is successful, it is hoped to make it the first of a series of similar reprints. The introduction is intended to supply a quite general background to the theory of the text. Readers who require a fuller treatment should go to G. Weills excellent Théories sur le Pouvoir Royal en France pendant les guerres de Religion (Paris, 1892). The dedication is a word of thanks on my part for three pleasant years of service in a great fellowship. H. J. L. London School of Economics and Political Science.

Graham Wallas: addresses given at the London School of Economics and Political Science, October 19th, 1932

Addresses given at the London School of Economics and Political Science, October i9th, I932* Sir Josiah Stamp DR. BROWN, the Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at Oxford, told us recently in York that every man is a different man to every person he meets. If a man is inconstant in his behaviour, or approaches different men differently, this must obviously be true, but if he is invariable in temper and outlook to all with whom he comes in contact, the difference must lie in those who supply the other half of the contact. I believe everyone would agree upon the complete consistency of Graham Wallass character and approach. So far as he was concerned he was the same to us all, and yet, according to our different temperaments alnd interests, we each record with quite different emphasis what were to us the greatest characteristics of the man. Each of us brought to that contact his own preconceived notions and complex of expectations, and while I desire very much to escape from the entirely individual angle of my own experience in paying my tribute to Graham Wallas, and, in making my estimate of him, to express sentiments of a more representative character, at the same time I make no apology for starting on an entirely personal note. Graham Wallas stood for me in a totally different position from any other thinker of my acquaintance. This is probably because I approached him originally in circumstances which were unique and entirely personal. At the age of 3I, although I had just secured my degree, and had a fairly wide acquaintance with thinkers of all kinds through their books, I had never, in fact, met in the flesh any man of repute-teacher or lecturer. The opportunity had been completely denied me, for I had wandered all over the country with my bag of books-largely the spoils of the London School of Economics Common Room

A Grammar of Politics.

1. The Purpose of Social Organisation 2. Sovereignty 3. Rights 4. Liberty and Equality 5. Property 6. Nationalism and Civilisation 7. Authority as Federal 8. Political Institutions 9. Economic Institutions 10. The Judicial Process 11. International Organisation

Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty.

1. The Sovereignty of the State Chapter 2. The Political Theory of the Disruption 3. The Political Theory of the Oxford Movement 4. The Political Theory of the Catholic Revival 5. De Maistre and Bismarck