Laski on Liberty and Emancipation

Liberty, or freedom, was a key feature of Laski's thought. This chapter examines consistency and change in his position. Having described liberty alternately in positive or negative terms over a period of more than twenty years, a major development in his writings of the 1940s was his argument that it was unrealistic to expect the conditions for positive freedom to be achieved until capitalist dominance could be overcome. This helps clear up the confusion generated by his earlier changeability. The chapter discusses the concept of contingent anarchy in Laski's writings of the 1920s and 1930s. His thought in the 1940s on freedom was clearly influenced by Marxism. The idea of contingent anarchy can be detected in the background of his Marx-influenced arguments of that decade. The chapter helps shed light on the significance of his thought on emancipation, which interlinked his work on freedom, class analysis and historical trajectory in the 1930s and 1940s.