Laski’s Theory of Rights || Political Theory 

#UGCNETPOLITICALSCIENCE #NTANET2020 #TheoryOFrights
Rights are rightly called social claims which help individuals attain their best selves and help
them develop their personalities. If democracy is to be government of the people, it has to exist
for them. Such a democratic government can best serve the people if it maintains a system of
rights for its people. States never give rights, they only recognise them; governments never grant
rights, they only protect them. Rights emanate from society, from peculiar social conditions, and,
therefore, they are always social. Rights are individuals’ rights; they belong to the individuals;
they exist for the individuals; they are exercised by them so as to enable them to attain the full
development of their personalities
Laski’s Theory of Rights
Harold Laski (1893-1950), a theoretician of the English Labour Party and a Political Scientist
in his own right, has his definite views on the system of rights as expounded in his A Grammar
of Politics (first published in 1925 and then revised almost every second year).
There are numerous theories of rights which explain the nature, origin and meaning of rights.
The theory of natural rights describes rights as nature; the theory of legal rights recognises
rights as legal; the historical theory of rights pronounces rights as products of traditions and
customs; the idealistic theory, like the theory of legal rights, relates rights only with the state;
the social welfare theory of rights regards rights as social to be exercised in the interest of both
the individual and the society