state-purpose

Updated: May 6, 2025

Smith did not see that in the processes of politics what gets accepted is not the will that is at every moment a part of the state-purpose, but the will of those who in fact operate the machinery of government. In the half-century after he wrote the men who dominated political life were, with the best intentions, moved by motives at most points unrelated to the national well-being.

Harold Joseph Laski - Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham