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Dear Fellow Political Theorists,

This introduction was written very quickly and any misunderstandings are my fault. What I would like to focus on in this introduction is the intellectual background and historical context of Mill’s work. Let us first consider the historical development, effects of liberalism, and the growing resistance to liberalism up until the mid-19th century. If you recall from reading Locke, liberalism—its early version—reinforced the rights to acquire unlimited property and hence allowed for great economic inequalities to develop. By the 1850s , liberalism leads to a situation in which some people are so wealthy that they are capable of effectively and disproportionality exerting control in the economic AND political spheres. Isn’t liberalism closely aligned with the rule of law, division of powers, and all those good things that prevent individuals from exercising such control, you ask? Yes indeed, but the unchecked inequalities turn liberalism on itself. Notice that in the readings I gave you there is an illustration from Dickens’s “Two Cities”. This is no coincidence. Similar to the idea of two Americas, Dickens describes the stratification of a city into the poor working class and the wealthy industrial owners (I recommend reading the novel if you find the time for it). A large segment of the population, the working class, in England were dwelling in abject poverty. The promise of liberalism—protection of rights, individual liberties, non-tyrannical government—meant little to the populace suffering under the existing economic conditions. The (political) liberal…almost unqualified protection…of the market, you could say, was undermining the political stability buttressing the market. Given the failings of liberalism, people turned to alternatives that pushed for different political systems (some more democratic) and different economic systems, say socialism and Marxism. Something had to be done. The system was failing on its own terms.

Here comes John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) on a white horse—I don’t know if he actually rode a white horse. J.S. Mill, the liberal and utilitarian. But not just any kind of liberal and not just kind of utilitarian and here we are starting to move into his intellectual background. Before we do so, please allow for a brief interlude.

Remember I kept scribbling “liberal” “democracy” “representation” on the board for the classes we had on Locke? We left democracy alone for the time being and examined what the political representation of liberalism is (what the sovereign looks like for Locke and the relation between the people and the executive power, legislative power, some of which is delegated to government in order to protect unlimited property accumulation, sorry, I mean, rights). And then with Rousseau I didn’t scribble this again, but we focused on the representation of the people to themselves through the general will (of the community of course) and expressed through various forms of government (various dis/proportionate relations of people to themselves and democracy is the proportionate relation of the people to themselves. They were equal to themselves in this somewhat problematic form of government).

J.S. Mill comes on the scene, sees the decay, byproducts of liberalism, the wariness about democracy (the chaos that democracy involves) and sets out to reconcile liberalism and democracy. Can democracy somehow put a check on the excesses of liberalism? How would it even do so? J.S. Mill, not just any liberal: a liberal who (1) had to confront other liberals opposed to democracy and convince them (or at least try to) that democracy is not dangerous to economic progress; and (2) had to reach out to the lower classes to lure them away from anti-capitalist movements and towards liberalism that would be more attractive to them on a new political ground without guaranteeing economic equality. In the attempt to straddle the line between the two, as paradoxical, and problematic this attempt may be, Mill is a liberal democrat.

He is also a special kind of utilitarian. If prior to Mill, utilitarians…by the way, we know who utiliatirans are? Ok, so just to refresh our memories, for utilitarians, you calculate the values of pleasure and pain—try to maximize the pleasure for the maximum number of people and minimize the harm for the greatest number of people. Perform this calculation on various problems, and find solutions. Everyone is an individual, everyone’s pleasure counts for a “1” and let’s say harm counts for a “-1”. At least that’s how it worked before Mill. Mill comes along, scratches his head, and notes that not all pleasures are the same. There are higher and lower pleasures. Some pleasures should be valued more than others, and should be developed therefore more than other pleasures. If this is the case, shouldn’t the political body have some part in cultivating individuals (rather than just leaving them alone) and trying not just maximize some kind of quantitative pleasure (let’s say measured in money), but the higher pleasures which are qualitatively different from the lower ones? What if such a political arrangement, “reform liberalism” we can call it—an arrangement aimed at cultivating higher pleasure for the greatest number of people—conflicts with liberalism that aims at unlimited accumulation of wealth, a drive towards greater productivity? The more democratic direction of liberalism that emphasizes the need to support the masses, to cultivate the highest pleasures of the greatest number of people comes into conflict with liberalism aimed at unlimited accumulation of wealth, and productivity as the ultimate goal. This is the cliff-hanger moment--how these forces work themselves out. And now we can read some Mill…