The Inconsistencies of John Stuart Mill

Many people today consider the prospect of a socialist utopia to be very appealing. Even if they do not believe such a utopia is achievable in its purest sense, they believe it is something we all ought to work towards.

For many liberals who flirt with socialism, one of the most beguiling features of socialism is its vision of a world full of good people who are generally altruistic and do not need incentives to work towards the common good—they do the right thing from the goodness of their hearts because they are smart enough to realize that society as a whole will benefit. Everyone is then nudged along in the right direction by the right types of government interventions.

The role of John Stuart Mill in promoting this view of socialism among classical liberals was criticized by Ludwig von Mises in his book Socialism. Mises argued that Mill’s utopian arguments “have provided for decades one of the main props of the socialist idea, and have contributed more to its popularity than the hate-inspired and frequently contradictory arguments of socialist agitators.”

Mill depicted socialist precepts in a way that would seem attractive to liberals who are constantly striving to create a better world. The quest for utopia—or as close to utopia as can be achieved with the right sorts of government interventions—is the quintessential mindset of the progressive liberal. Mises explains:

…Mill lapses into the dreams of the Utopians and conceives it possible that public opinion will be powerful enough to incite the individual to increased zeal for labour, that ambition and self-conceit will be effective motives, and so on. lt need only be said that unfortunately we have no reason to assume that human nature will be any different under Socialism from what it is now.

Further, in his book Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, Mises described Mill as “the great advocate of socialism.” He argued that Mill provided liberals with rationalizations depicting socialism as compatible with classical liberalism, rather than a threat to it. Mises writes:

Without a thorough study of Mill it is impossible to understand the events of the last two generations, for Mill is the great advocate of socialism. All the arguments that could be advanced in favor of socialism are elaborated by him with loving care. In comparison with Mill all other socialist writers—even Marx, Engles, and Lassalle—are scarcely of any importance.

David Gordon has observed that Mill was not only a utopian, he was also “a propagandist anxious to replace Christianity with a Religion of Humanity, guided by intellectuals such as himself.” In that sense Mill can be seen as typical of “The Anointed” as identified by Thomas Sowell. The anointed are intellectuals who believe their utopia is such a great vision for the world that it ought to be enforced on society for the good of everyone.

As the anointed see things, some people may not be wise or smart enough to know what is good for them, therefore the liberals who are their intellectual superiors and understand what is required to fix and improve society should override any objections—which, after all, are not worthy of respect—and enforce utopia on the world. Those who failed to listen to reason will be grateful when they see that it was for their own good. Or so the anointed believe.

Ralph Raico also highlighted Mill’s utopianism and his “censorious” nature: “he was, in the words of Maurice Cowling, ‘one of the most censorious of nineteenth century moralists.’ He constantly passed judgment on the habits, attitudes, preferences, and moral standards of great numbers of people of whom he knew nothing.” He dreamed of what can best be described as a utopian social order:

…the freedom of opinion espoused in On Liberty was largely part of Mill’s grand strategy — to demolish religious faith, especially Christianity, and received mores, on the way to erecting a social order based on “the religion of humanity.” True individuality would be incarnated in the future “Millian man,” dreamt of by Mill and Harriet Taylor, a being in whom selfishness and greed would be replaced by altruism and the constant cultivation of the loftier faculties.

For example, Mill saw Jesuits as slaves to their religious order who should be liberated, for their own good. As Gordon points out, this was no mere criticism of religion or of the Jesuit order. It was an attempt by Mill to declare himself, as a liberal intellectual, the arbiter of how people should live their lives in a “liberal” society—he favored, in effect, a “intellectual dictatorship by an elite.” Gordon explains:

Mill did not merely hold as a private opinion that the dominant religious doctrines of his time were false. Quite the contrary, he wanted his own views to prevail among the public.

This is why Murray Rothbard said that Mill’s version of classical liberalism was “confused and inconsistent.” On the question of the War for Southern Independence, Mill certainly had opinions that were entirely opposed to those of Rothbard. Rothbard’s view of the Southern cause was the same as that of the liberal Lord Acton, who, in his correspondence with Robert E. Lee, wrote that he mourned the loss of the Confederacy as the loss of liberty.

Mill saw the South’s bid for independence in a completely different light. He did not stop at arguing that slavery was morally wrong and ought to be abolished immediately, a view shared by Lord Acton. Mill went further, being a great believer in Britain’s right to intervene in foreign affairs—to make the world a better place, of course. He urged the British government not to recognize the Confederate States of America, as had been proposed by some parliamentarians. He expressed his desire to see the South’s bid for independence “promptly put down.”

Mill dismissed outright all the arguments advanced by the Southern states in explaining their reasons for secession, for example, their grievances on the tariff question. He did not see the cause of the South as even worthy of debate. He declared all their explanations for their stance to be entirely false, a mere façade constructed to mask their desire for cruelty against their fellow human beings. Having announced that the “true” reason for secession was nothing to do with a constitutional dispute but was merely a pretext invented by the South to justify “the right of burning human creatures alive,” he accordingly gave his verdict that the Confederacy was wicked.

Of course, it is very easy to denounce anyone if we begin by dismissing whatever they say and substituting our own explanation for their actions. It is a hallmark of judgmental people that they are devoted to informing other people of their wrongful reasons and motivations for doing anything.

As the historian Clyde Wilson has argued, this often entails little more than protagonists selecting their preferred political narrative: “In almost every case there is conflicting testimony or inadequate sources so that judgment becomes a matter of who you believe are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”

The reasoning of the Millian Man is: I do not like the Confederacy and, therefore, everything the Confederate leaders said was a lie. This is a form of Kafkaesque reasoning, in which one’s opponents are summarily condemned as untrustworthy, which in turn renders inadmissible anything they say in their own defense. It is very convenient because their arguments can be dismissed outright without troubling to address the issues raised.

Lord Acton was no Millian Man. He saw the cause of the South, as he explained it in his letter to Robert E. Lee, as the cause of liberty:

I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy… I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.