Laski redivivus

Abstract

At his death in 1950 Harold Laski was Britain's leading political thinker. Thereafter his reputation declined radically and rapidly. Recently, interest in his work has revived, as is evidenced by the two major biographies reviewed here. The review examines the originality of Laski's political thought in both his pluralist and quasi-Marxist phases, considers the reasons for the decline in his influence and asks what changes are tending to make his thought relevant again today. It is argued that, in a world in which the power of the nation state has declined and the capacity of the old left–right political spectrum to encompass politics has lessened, Laski's early pluralist thought in particular may have valuable lessons to teach us.