The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (156 page)

UK political office. Although the official role of the Lord President is to present business to the monarch and councillors at formal meetings of the Privy Council, the post is normally given by the Prime Minister to a member of the Cabinet in order to undertake
ad hoc
tasks.

 
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See
exit
;
voice
.

 
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(1885–1971)
Marxist philosopher, and communist, born in Budapest and educated at the University of Berlin. His early writings such as
The Theory of the Novel
(1916) were concerned with applying a form of neo-Kantianism to investigate problems within aesthetics. After reading Hegel and Marx, however, he began to concentrate on the problem of the relationship between theory and practice in terms of the dialectical method.
History and Class Consciousness
(1923) takes up these issues explicitly. Luk´cs emphasizes the importance of the proletariat as a class conscious ‘subject’ within the ‘object’ of capitalist society. It is only the proletariat, from its privileged class position, that can grasp society as a totality, as a unity between theory and practice. It is in this sense that Luk´cs could see the proletariat as the bearer of historical development in a capitalist system which attempted to negate that very fact. To this end the fetishized appearances of capital had to be subjected to a thoroughgoing dialectical critique. Even the categories which orthodox theory used to explain social reality needed to be understood as specific to their historical context. They were therefore steeped in the very bourgeois ideology that the dialectical method had to penetrate in order to discover ‘truth’. In a later work,
The Young Hegel
(1948), his emphasis on the direct influence of Hegel's thought on Marx was further established. Consequently Luk´cs has been seen as a leading, if not the, founder of Hegelian Marxism within the Western Marxist tradition.
IF 

 
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(
c.
1235–1315)
See
social choice
.

 
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See
Bonapartism
;
communism
.

 
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(1483–1546)
German religious reformer. Luther's political thought was concerned with Church–State relationships, but he brought some new ideas to that protracted controversy. He was born at Eisleben in Saxony and studied classics and philosophy at Erfurt. In 1505 he entered the Augustinian Order, and, having studied theology, was ordained in 1507. He lectured at Wittenberg (1508–46) on philosophy and Scripture (mostly New Testament). Basing himself on Paul and
Augustine
he evolved his doctrine of justification by faith alone. As was common at the time he became critical of Roman practices. In 1517, when the Dominican preacher, John Tetzel, was descending on Wittenberg selling indulgences (remission of punishment due to sin in return for a monetary consideration), Luther posted ninety-five theses against the practice and its implications on a church door.
This marked the beginning of Luther's break with Rome and led by a series of events to what came to be called Lutheranism, the Reformation, and Protestantism. These events of a purely theological and internally ecclesiastical nature do not concern us here. Their effect, however, was to set northern Europe in turmoil. Luther had to revise the notions of Church–State relationship to accommodate his new theological ideas. This he attempted to do, but never did satisfactorily.
By 1523 he had clarified his ideas on the Church-State relationship along Augustinian lines in
On Secular Authority
. Like Augustine he distinguished between two kingdoms:
Reichen
the Kingdom of God; and the Kingdom of the World or Satan. First, Luther's Kingdom of God is free to follow its own conscience. It is a community bound together by love rather than coercion (unlike the Roman Church). The only authority is the word of God which is obeyed freely. There is no external form such as a church nor any distinction between clergy and laity; there is a ‘priesthood of all believers’.
Second, the other kingdom is secular and temporal. It is a divine institution but governed by its own will and reason, and designed to keep the peace by coercion. Christians can participate and hold office in it freely so long as its laws are not in conflict with divine law set down in Scripture. Rulers could war with one another as equals and even against the emperor if he was acting tyrannically—this was a secular matter. But the secular kingdom could not interfere in spiritual matters. However, in practice Luther allowed secular authorities to appoint ecclesiastics, pay them, and even interfere in matters of doctrine and worship.
CB