Page 259 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Unit 14: John Stuart Mill and His Representative Government

Mill visualized society as composed of free, equal, independent and virtuous citizens, who Notes
contributed their best towards the common good and would in turn receive fair rewards for their
contributions. He rejected the hereditary class system, because it was inherently inefficient and
obstructed progress. Mill diluted the distinction between the three social classes in the Ricardian
system. He did not attack the landowning class for receiving a steady increase in rent, while the
capitalist faced diminishing returns and the labourer survived at the bare level of subsistence, a
point picked by George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) later to furnish the economic basis of Fabian
Socialism. Mill was critical of idleness and opulence, just as his father was, and attacked the
conspicuous consumption of the new middle class in the same way as he castigated the old
aristocracy. As opposed to the big bourgeois, he praised the small, landed proprietors for he learnt
of their importance from Tocqueville as preservers of American democracy.
Mill insisted that while increased production was important for poor countries, it was better
distribution of existing wealth that mattered in advanced ones. He visualized a happy society as one
that consisted of
a well paid and affluent body of labourers; no enormous fortunes, except what were
earned and accumulated during a single lifetime; but a much larger body of persons
than at present, not only exempt from the coarser toils, but with sufficient leisure, both
physical and mental, from mechanical details, to cultivate freely the graces of life, and
afford examples of them to the classes less favourable circumstances for their growth
(Mill 1963: 755).
Mill advocated taxing inheritance above a modest level, rather than industry and the economy, for
that would curtail the incentive to work harder and save more than his peers. In case of intestacy
or property without a legal will, it would revert to the state after providing enough for the
descendants. He opposed taxation on investments, for that would harm those who could not
work, and for whose security it was started. He did not like taxing incomes and savings
simultaneously, for that would undercut the willingness of those who kept a portion of their
money for productive investments, by which wealth was created and “distributed in wages among
the poor” (Mill ibid: 816). While he desired to preserve the entrepreneurship of the bourgeois, he
attacked the landed aristocracy which grew wealthy “without working, risking or economizing”
(Mill ibid: 819-820). It was for this reason that he was against primogeniture. Thus, Mill combined
both a production and a distribution view of economics.
In general, Mill believed that the policy of laissez faire was the ideal, but it could be set aside for the
purposes of education, care of children and the insane, planned colonization, relief for poor,
public utilities like water and regulation of hours of work. The state would ensure that none
starved. He did not advocate abolition of property or its equalization. He desired general
embourgeoisement so that everyone worked for a living, enjoyed a decent standard of living and
had sufficient leisure to cultivate one’s mind.
Mill’s “socialism” was essentially libertarian, for it aimed at the full development of the individual’s
faculties and the liberation of the human potential. “The aim of improvement should be not solely
to place human beings in a condition of which they will be able to do without one another but to
enable them to work with or for one another in relations not involving dependence”.
Mill was attracted to socialism because of its idea of human cooperation or partnership, but he
was equally keen to preserve individuality and freedom. He did not advocate socialization of the
means of production. He realized the need to change capitalism by bringing in the ethic of social
welfare and cooperation. This was because capitalism, even with the incentive of self-interest, had
not been able to eliminate parasitism, for those unwilling to work were able to develop ways to
shirk work. Socialism with communal ownership had superior methods, which forced lazy members
to produce and work. The difference was that in a capitalist society a employer could dismiss a
lazy worker, but in a socialist society he could be reformed by public opinion, which to Mill was

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