Harold J. Laski

With Locke, with Smith, with Hegel and with Marx, the ultimate hypothesis is always the summary of some special experience universalized.

It can never be too greatly emphasized that in each age the substance of liberty will be found in what the dominating forces of that age most greatly want.

The nineteenth century sought release from political privilege; and it built its success upon the system prepared by its predecessor.

But nothing is more certain in the history of political philosophy than that the problem of freedom changes with each age.

Smith thought of freedom in the terms most suitable to his generation and stated them with a largeness of view which remains impressive even at a century's distance.

It took almost a century after the publication of the Wealth of Nations for men to realize that its axioms represented the experience of a definite time.

History is an unenviable record of bad metaphysics used to defend obsolete systems.

Private enterprise has the sanction of prescription; but since the Industrial Revolution the chief lesson we have had to learn is the unsatisfactory character of that title.

The danger in every period of history is lest we take our own age as the term in institutional evolution.

There was thus no reason to believe that the system of individual interests for which Smith stood sponsor was more likely to fit requirements of a new time than one which implied the national regulation of business enterprise.

The very scale of civilization implies collective plans and common effort.

Our liberty means the consistent expression of our personality in media where we find people like-minded with ourselves in their conception of social life.

A man may find self-realization not less in working for the common good than in the limited satisfaction of his narrow desire for material advancement.

The customs of men may represent the thwarting of the impulses of the many at the expense of the few not less easily than they may embody a general desire; and it is surely a mistaken usage to dignify as natural whatever may happen to have…

We must not assume an a priori justification for the forces of the past.

The individualism, that is to say, for which Adam Smith was zealous demands a different institutional expression from that which he gave it.

Yet it will be a civilization of slaves rather than of men.

That shrinkage of the purpose of the State will mean for most not merely hardship but degradation of all that makes life worthy.

In the absence of legislation, it is certain that those who employ the services of men will be their political masters; and it will follow that their Acts of Parliament will be adapted to the needs of property.

Modern achievement implies a training in the tools of life; and that, for most, is denied even in our own day to the vast majority of men.

Opposition to the Factory Acts would never have developed in a community where it was realized that below certain standards of subsistence the very concept of humanity is impossible.

In the half-century after he wrote the men who dominated political life were, with the best intentions, moved by motives at most points unrelated to the national well-being.

Smith did not see that in the processes of politics what gets accepted is not the will that is at every moment a part of the state-purpose, but the will of those who in fact operate the machinery of government.

Liberty, in the sense of a positive and equal opportunity for self-realization, is impossible save upon the basis of the acceptance of certain minimal standards which can get accepted only through collective effort.

No mere conflict of private interests, however pure in motive, seems able to achieve a harmony of interest between the members of the State.