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Is the quest for liberty an incontestable political good?
John Stuart Mill was born in London in 1806, the son of James Mill. He was a philosopher, economist and senior official in the East India Company. Mill gave a vivid and moving account of his life, and especially of his extraordinary education in his autobiography of 187. He was also a Liberal MP for Westminster from1865 to 1868, and as a young man in the 180s he edited the London and Westminster Review, a radical quarterly journal. He died at Aix-en-Provence in 187.
Mill was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He learned Greek at three, Latin a little later and by the age of 1, he was a competent logician and by 16 a well-trained economist. At 0 he suffered a nervous breakdown that persuaded him that more was needed in life than devotion to the public good and an analytically sharp intellect. From 180 to his death, he tried to persuade the British public of the necessity of a scientific approach to understanding social, political and economic change while not neglecting the insights of poets and other imaginative writers.
During his lifetime, it was his essay On Liberty, written in185 that aroused the greatest controversy, and the most expressions of approval and disapproval. The essay was sparked by the feeling that Mill and his wife, Harriet Taylor, constantly expressed in their letters to one another that they lived in a society where bold and adventurous individuals were becoming all too rare. Critics have sometimes thought that Mill was frightened by the prospect of a mass democracy in which working-class opinion would be oppressive and perhaps violent. The truth is that Mill was frightened by middle-class conformism much more than by anything to be looked for from an enfranchised working class. Custom Essays on philosophy Mill
Utility, writes Mill, or the Greatest Happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. (1)
This fundamentally hedonistic concept is further elaborated by Mill to equate happiness with pleasure and the absence of pain. This sounds fine, until we consider the very real necessity of pain in the process of growth, both as individuals and as societies. In this regard, Utilitarianism seems to be static, in that it fails to address fundamental processes of human development. In addition it is excessively simplistic and shortsighted in its attention to the pleasure principle. Such a doctrine could never realistically be applied to a system of colonisation such as advocated by the John Stuart Mill of the East India Company; part and parcel of colonisation is to place the Greatest Happiness Principle of the colonisers over that of the colonised.
The ideals of individualism and individual liberties also play a large role in Mills writings. These individual liberties included liberty of conscience, thought, opinion, and pursuits. Mill is very specific as to when individual liberties may be violated when he states
...that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection.()
Yet, in the same essay (pages 75-5), as Mill discusses what he believes an individual owes society, careful reading reveals that he considered many types of rebellious behaviour against the government or status quo should be regulated and restrained. Therefore, a colonised population, such as India, is not allowed to express their desire for individual freedoms if those freedoms pose a threat to the prevailing system, in this case the East India Company and, as of 1858, the British Empire. Hence, the prohibition of Indians to market their own produce. In the light of such restrictions, the idea of individual liberty seems secondary at best.
Mill goes on to apply these problematic ideals of individual liberty to economic entities.
Restrictions on trade, or on production for purposes of trade, are indeed restraints; and all restraint...is an evil.()
England exercised this policy, commonly known as Free Trade, with great vigour during the Nineteenth Century in its economic dealings with its colonies. However, the freedom implied by the term was somewhat one-sided. This was due to the fact that in those instances where the liberty of the individual clashed with the liberty of the economic entity, according to the doctrine of utilitarianism, the economic entity will predominate, in that it presumably provided the greater amount of happiness to society, and was, therefore more useful. In short, the rights of the individual are put on the back burner, individual liberty is co-opted by larger economic interests which, as we have seen, have now taken the ideological place initially reserved for the individual in the first place.
Mills attitude toward democracy is sounded as he proclaims that one of the main conditions essential to good government is
that it be government by a select body, not by the public collectively that political questions be not decided by an appeal, either direct or indirect, to the judgement or will of an uninstructed mass, whether of gentlemen or of clowns; but by the deliberately formed opinions of a comparatively few, specially formulated for the task.(4)
Here, Mill is clearly advocating an unfair system wholly suited to an imperialistic ruling class, yet not terribly concerned with liberty on an individual to individual basis. In fact, in regards to India, his opinion of the superiority of the English race is stated in no uncertain terms as he writes
...the conquerors and the conquered cannot in this case live together under the same free institutions.(5)
He goes on to express his opinion that
...these less advanced people...must be governed as subjects.(6)
On the one hand we have a Mill who expresses contempt for the masses and a general lack of confidence in the principles of democracy, advocating instead an oligarchy ruled by an intellectual aristocracy; then, on the other hand, we find an almost sentimental Mill, expressing confidence in a mankind whose own drive for happiness will lead it inevitably towards that perfect society in which, if not impeded by outside interference, the greatest good will come to be. Which Mill are we to believe?
The overriding flaw in Mills utopian vision of human intercourse is his stated belief that, given the chance (i.e. no interference from outside entities such as governments) the best in human nature will ultimately prevail. Even the most superficial reading of history will show that this is simply not the case.
Mills ideological legacy thrives to this very day. The endowment of individual liberties upon economic entities advocated by Mill has become the cornerstone of modern capitalism. Indeed, in America, the foremost industrial power in the world, Mills concept has been adopted and sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Bellotti ruling of 180 granted corporations first amendment free speech rights, thus equating, in the realm of expression, the corporation with the individual. With the enhancement of corporate power by such Supreme Court rulings, the inevitable consequence is the diminishment of the liberty of the individual.
Another consequence of Mills theories is the current state of affairs brought about by a decade of relatively unrestrained free trade. This social unaccountability has left us with savings and loan scandals, corporate domination of the media, and a vast concentration of wealth at the top of the economic food chain. I am forced to conclude that the quest for liberty is not an incontestable political good, but a 'survival of the fittest' race in which we are all striving to come out on top.
In conclusion, while I admire John Stuart Mills brilliance, his prolific output, and his writing style, I feel it important to point out that he was, in my opinion, operating on two planes of thought simultaneously, the two frequently came into direct conflict.
References and Bibliography
(1) John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (excerpt), p. 7.
() John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, p. .
() John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, p. 6.
(4) John Stuart Mill, Essays on Politics and Society, p. 64.
(5) Ibid., p. 550.
(6) Ibid., p. 550.
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