Place of the State in the Great Society: State and Other Associations

In line with the pluralist position, Laski supports the independent and prior existence of associations in society as compared to the State. According to Laski, ‘The state is only one among may forms of human association and as compared with the other associations, has no superior claims to the individual’s allegiance.’⁸² The State becomes as one of the associations competing for allegiance of the individuals as those of other associations like the church, trade union or club. It may be appropriate to mention here that Laski’s thinking on the nature of the State and its place in society evolved in dynamic way, starting early on, with administrative decentralization and industrial federalism; to a liberal pluralist state; to a positive liberal state and to a Marxian class analysis by the 1930s. In his writings like Problem of Sovereignty, Authority in the Modern State, Foundations of Sovereignty and Other Essays, The State in the New Social Order, Grammar of Politics, and An Introduction to Politics, his views on associations and state–society relationships are contained.

Laski’s views on state-association relationship as contained in his writings mentioned earlier and so far as they do not give primacy to the state to which he shifted subsequently, may be summarized in the following manner:

• General social life of individuals consists of a variety of interests which lead to or manifest in a variety of associative impulses.
• These associative impulses are reflected in a variety of associations in society, which are real and purposeful, and perform useful functions including emotional (family), religious (Church), economic (trade unions), and cultural (clubs) and hence these associations are natural.
• The State is one of such associations with certain functions and purpose, generally of political and legal in nature.
• Since each association including the State has its specified role in the life of the individual, no one can claim primacy.
• In fact, it can happen that the allegiance of individuals to some of the associations like the family or the church could be deeper and far more effective than that to the State.
• As these associations are natural and have a personality of their own, the State, due to its specific function which is legal and political, too has a personality.
• The State is made to compete for the allegiance of citizens with all other associations in society.
• Society at the bottom is federal in nature, hence authority in society must be federal too.

It would be appropriate to mention that at this stage, Laski argues that ‘…the will of the State is no more than a competition with the wills of other groups …’though subsequently, he argues that ‘the will of the state is formed by the struggle that takes place among competing wills.’⁸³ This shift in Laski’s position in treating the state as one amongst the equals to first amongst the equals may be attributed to his dilemma which many other pluralists also face. This dilemma emerges from the fact that an individual being a creature of various associative impulses and interests may at times come in conflict with one another. Now, what mechanism or machinery does a pluralist have to regulate and coordinate these relations. For Barker, Lindsay, Figgis and Follett, the state provides such an agency and performs the coordinating function. Laski follows this line of thinking and resolves this dilemma by assigning the State the role of ‘coordinating agency’. His consideration of the society–state relationships in his An Introduction to Politics in terms of what he says, ‘The Place of the State in the Great Society’, on the one hand, seeks to build a case for a pluralist state and on the other, punctuates it by assigning primacy to the State. This position of Laski is contained in the paragraph, wherein he says,

… the individual is not merely a member of the state. In the society of which he is a part, there are innumerable interests—units to which he may belong. He is a member of a church, an ardent trade-unionist, a keen freemason, a zealous supporter of a movement for compulsory vaccination, a pacifist to whom a conscientious objection to military service is the central principle of life. He is, so to say, intrinsically connected with associations seeking to promote each of these interests.

 

And next he adds:

They (associations) live, for the most part, within the ambit of the rules which the state lays down. It’s (the state) wills settles the boundaries within which their wills, as associations, must operate. Their wills bind their members, in law, only to the point of accordance with the legal imperatives which the state lays down.⁸⁴

For Laski, multiplicity of associations in society needs a federal nature of authority. The complexity of relationship between individuals and groups, groups and the State, and individual and the State requires division of authority between the state and groups to which individuals are equally committed. To achieve this, Laski supports administrative decentralization, industrial federalism/self-government for industry, co-existence of territorial and functional representation, participative decision-making through consultation with functional groups, etc.

Notwithstanding his case for a pluralist state, Laski concedes that ‘the state, so to say, is the crowning-point of the modern social edifice, and it is in its supremacy over all other associations of social grouping that its special nature is to be found.’⁸⁵ The reasons, which Laski attributes for this special nature, can be summarized as follows:

• Legally, every state has an organ whose authority is unlimited (Foundations of Sovereignty)
• State is an association in which membership is compulsory (Grammar of Politics)
• State is territorial in nature (Grammar of Politics)
• State enforces law upon all who live within its boundaries (An Introduction to Politics)
• State is a way of regulating human conduct (An Introduction to Politics)
• State being a ‘public service corporation’ serving common needs of members must control other associations to the degree that secures from them the service such needs require (Grammar of Politics)

Laski’s varying position between the pluralist state and the state as crowning-point of modern social edifice needs to be reconciled at one point or the other with an overall coordinating role he concedes to the State. This reconciliation we find in the condition he invokes in giving allegiance to the State. Laski says, ‘we give … our allegiance to the state always upon the condition that its end, as a state, satisfies the end we set before ourselves. Its sovereignty is contingent upon our agreement to its exercise.’⁸⁶ Thus, the interest, happiness and good that the State seeks and pursues are the ones which we seek and in this the state provides the condition for individual happiness and development. This way, Laski provides his solution to the individual–state and groupstate anti-thesis. Laski elucidates this with the example of rights of citizens against the State, which the State itself lays and provides conditions for individuals attaining happiness.

We can say that though Laski starts as advocating a pluralist state he ends up conceding a coordinating role to the State. This leaves him with no option but to compromise with the existence of sovereignty, though contingent upon the State maintaining a condition of happiness of the individual. Laski’s views of pluralism do not renounce sovereignty but rather reinterprets it to adjust to overall formulation of pluralism.