C. B. Macpherson
| C. B. Macpherson | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Crawford Brough Macpherson November 18, 1911 |
| Died | July 22, 1987 (aged 76) |
| Education | University of Toronto |
| Occupation | Political scientist, professor |
Crawford Brough Macpherson OC (18 November 1911 – 22 July 1987) was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto.
Macpherson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1933. After earning an M.Sc. in Economics at the London School of Economics where he studied under the supervision of Harold Laski, he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in 1935. At that time a Ph.D. in the social sciences was uncommon, but some twenty years later he submitted a collection of sixteen published papers to the London School of Economics and was awarded the D.Sc. in Economics. These papers were then published in 1953 edition as the book, Democracy in Alberta; the theory and practice of a quasi-party system. In 1956 he became a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto.
He took several sabbaticals on fellowships which were often spent at English universities including an Overseas Fellowship of Churchill College, Cambridge.
Macpherson gave the annual Massey Lectures in 1964. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, in 1976.
Following his death, a two-part documentary on his life and work aired on CBC Radio's Ideas program.
The Canadian Political Science Association presents an annual C. B. Macpherson Prize for the best book on political theory written by a Canadian.
In 1976 Macpherson was criticized from some on both the left and the right. In response, he claimed that what he had always been trying to do was to "work out a revision of liberal-democratic theory, a revision that clearly owed a great deal to Marx, in the hope of making that theory more democratic while rescuing that valuable part of the liberal tradition which is submerged when liberalism is identified as synonymous with capitalist market relations." His combination of Marx's political economy with T.H. Green's ethical liberalism is best understood as left-leaning neo-Hegelian Canadian idealism. In the 1980s and the rise of the New Right-inspired governments, which challenged and undermined the mixed economy and welfare state, democratic socialism has seemed to be in retreat.
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