LSE influence

1920s-50s
LSE influence: British socialism, politics, internationalism.

LSE's influence outside academia extends beyond the individual to the wider field of politics and what can be termed 'British socialism'.

From its beginning, the School has been accused of a political slant. Since LSE has always intended to use the higher study of economics and political science to educate and train people for careers in administration and business, and given the Fabian politics of the School's founders and their ambitions for social reform, the criticism is perhaps unsurprising, but the accusation is unfair. The Webbs always insisted that the School's research be unbiased, and it is the impartial discovery of the facts that inspires the way it teaches. The School is a place where political views and differences can be expressed and discussed in an open environment. The true spirit of the School can be found in its motto - rerum cognoscere causas - to get to know, to understand, the cause of things.

This ideal in itself is inherently apolitical. Identifying the underlying causes of things and bringing these facts to public visibility and awareness - so that decisions can be based on objective reality - is where the true 'political' impetus and allegiance of the School lies. Bringing the fact of the matter to light can be a politically awkward and controversial process, but it is essential if the cause of the effect is to be found and the opportunity for a fair and impartial society is to be created. The School does not shy from controversy in identifying the facts that might prevent or achieve this social aim; to do so would distort the fairness and impartiality of its research. The School has always been pluralistic in its outlook and has taken care to avoid affiliation to one vein of thinking. On an individual level, this can be seen in the differences between the thought of Laski or von Hayek or Popper. Politically, and contrary to its 'Left' image, of the five School Directors who have entered politics two were conservative (Mackinder, Hewins) and three liberal - Reeves (in New Zealand), Beveridge, and Dahrendorf (FDP in Germany). None was Labour.

Nevertheless, the School has had incredible international and political influence through those involved with it as staff or students. In the 1920s-50s, LSE graduates were a significant element of collectivist and intellectual thinking in the Labour party and left of centre politics. LSE's Professor of Political Science Harold Laski was a major influence on Labour Party policy, serving on the party's National Executive from 1937-49 and the party chairman from 1945-46. In the words of Laski's biographers he was, "…the principal theorist of a democratic socialism indelibly identified with the British Labour Party, the London School of Economics and Laski." (Kramnick and Sheerman 1993). Hugh Dalton, an LSE doctoral student and an economics lecturer at the School from 1918-36, was one of the 'big five' in the Labour Party (along with Attlee, Bevin, Cripps, and Morrison) during the 1940-50s. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Attlee's post-war administration, and he influenced the subsequent development of the Labour Party through his encouragement and promotion of future Labour figures like Callahan, Gaitskell, Crosland, and Healey.

Political thinking and influence at the School was not confined to the left and LSE has also been a home to political thought and opinion right of centre. Sir Karl Popper's thought traced the roots of totalitarianism back to Plato, Hegel, and Marx. Von Hayek's economic liberalism came to prominence with the end of the Keynesian ascendancy in the 90s, inspiring the economic policy of the New Right. Laski's successor as Professor of Political Science at LSE, Michael Oakeshott, was a conservative thinker, and other School academics - Ken Minogue, Elie Kedourie, and William Letwin (sometimes referred to as 'Oakeshott's acolytes') - also spoke for conservative thought. The development economist Peter Bauer was influential on the right under Thatcher, and Alan Walters, an economics professor at the School from 1968-76, was to become Thatcher's guru.

This tradition of developing political thought and 'speaking truth to power' of whatever political party continues today. The 'Third Way' of Anthony Giddens, the School's Director, is a much-quoted influence on what has become a global political debate about the evolution of left of centre politics and the renewal of social democracy. The US Senator and Ambassador Patrick Moynihan suggested in a 1975 article in Commentary that the phenomenon of 'British socialism' and its global diffusion was related to the School. The roots of this socialism are Fabian, and it combines democratic institutions with a government motivated by the ideal of the good or just society.

Internationalism and the cosmopolitan nature of the School's students has always marked it as an institution. The Director's report of 1899 noted proudly that School students came from sixteen different countries. Today they come from over 130. LSE has always had a tradition of thinking beyond national boundaries, and the School has long been established as an international centre of social studies. In the words of former Director Lord Dahrendorf, 'LSE was not and could not have been the British, or the National School of Economics. Its base was London, and its home the world.' (Dahrendorf 1995).

Such factors aside, the calibre of the School's graduates and the administrative, public, and business positions they have proceeded to hold help to explain the internationalism of the School's influence. As well as presidents and prime ministers, School alumni across the world have become ministers of finance or central bank governors in Peru, St. Lucia, Cyprus, Chile, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius. The relationship between India and the School reaches back to the School's very beginnings, and alumni include B.K.Nehru and the President of India. Of those associated with LSE in Britain, Beveridge is often referred to as the architect of the Welfare State, Sidney Webb helped shape the Labour Party, and Laski was a major influence on the Labour Party's development in the late 30s and after the war.