Harold Joseph Laski

Laski, Harold Joseph

 

Born June 30, 1893, in Manchester; died Mar. 24, 1950, in London. English sociologist, figure of the Labor Party, reformist.

Laski was educated at Oxford. From 1914 to 1920 he taught at universities in Canada and the USA. In 1926 he became a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1936 to 1949 he was a member of the executive committee of the Labor Party; in 1945 he became chairman of that committee. Laski was one of the theoreticians behind “democratic socialism,” the ideological sources for which he attempted to find in Christianity. He held that the transformation of society would be accomplished as the result of the moral improvement of individuals rather than by revolutionary means. Laski denied the class character of the state.