… the right … to the
franchise is essential to liberty; and a citizen excluded from it is unfree.[1]
Harold J. Laski, Liberty
in the Modern State, 1930.
Here Laski is quoted by Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty (1960). It is worth noting that Harper
(with Thatcher) is a devoted follower of Hayek’s neo-liberalism which won him a
shared Noel Prize in Economics in 1974. Laski (associating with Frankfurt School and British
Labour Party – and a teacher of Pierre Trudeau) taught at the London School of
Economics from 1920 to 1950; and Hayek taught there, as well, from 1931 to
1950. Perhaps these two intellectual
icons, with very different political leanings, would be in agreement over
Harper’s “Fair” Elections Act.
[1][1]
Quoted in F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of
Liberty. Definitive Edition, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 2011), p. 62. n. 11.
