John Stuart Mill and Socialism

Life

John Stuart Mill was born in 1806 at Pentonville on the outskirts of London, and was the eldest son of James Mill. His father was a friend, and close political associate of Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was a Utilitarian philosopher and radical reformer. James Mill along with the help of Bentham believed that that far more could be achieved through rigorous education. So John was entirely homeschooled, where he learned Greek at the age of three, Latin and algebra by age eight, and was effective at reasoning by his early teens. However, all of this education did eventually catch up to J. S. Mill when he had a nervous breakdown, and sunk into a deep depression for almost two years. He later stated that Romantic poetry contributed greatly to his recovery especially that of Wordsworth. This new perceptive encouraged him to combine elements of value from the various philosophical, cultural, and political positions. Mill continued to pursue these values until his death in 1873 at the age of 67.

Socialist View

Mill believes that the two main elements to be considered in any proposals are “that which is to be changed, and what which it is to be changed to.” The first is the judgment of Socialism on existing institutions and practices, and how they reach their results. The second are the various plans for which Socialism believes it can do better. Socialists believe that the present arrangements of society are a total failure. This is mainly dealing with property, production, and the distribution of wealth. Mill continues to assert that socialist ideals are for an equal share of the labor would attain a fair share of the fruits produced. However it is the land owners that receive the fruits of labor and not the workers. This makes birth the most powerful of all the determining circumstances for ones success. The second would be that of success in life by accident and opportunity. This then brings the socialist to determinants of virtues. With the increase in market size there is less reason for a merchant to produce quality goods, but instead cheaper products that can be sold at top prices for higher revenue. In the past the merchant had to rely on return business while now with more consumers an inferior good can take its place. Mill believes that “honesty is the best policy”, and that an honest person will have a better chance of success than that of a rogue.

This brings socialist to the first grand failure of the existing arrangements of society, poverty. The second is human misconduct; crime and vice, along with all the sufferings which follow them. Poverty can be linked to idleness in a few circumstances where individuals are not compelled to work, must likely due to bad education or lack of education. Socialists believe that these must be failures of the social arrangements, and that current social arrangements with free markets are a cause for struggle. The only way to get ahead is to push others back or not be pushed back by them. They consider this system a private war between everyone and everyone, which is fatal in an economical point of view and in a moral. Therefore, society is travelling towards a new feudality, one which is ruled by great capitalists.

In Mills “On Liberty” he uses the writing by Blanc, Considerant, and Owen to further the understanding of the socialist position and what they determine to be wrong with the social arrangement of the time.

Louis Blanc

Blanc broke his arguments into two separate parts. How the social arrangements affect the poor and how they affect the middle class. He explains the position of the poor and how they are affected by competition the best in the following paragraph.

"What is competition from the point of view of the workman? It is work put up to auction. A contractor wants a workman: three present themselves. - How much for your work? - Half-a-crown: I have a wife and children. - Well; and how much for yours? — Two shillings: I have no children, but I have a wife. - Very well; and now how much for you? - One and eightpence are enough for me; I am single. Then you shall have the work. It is done; the bargain is struck. And what are the other two workmen to do? It is to be hoped they will die quietly of hunger. But what if they take to thieving? Never fear; we have the police. To murder? We have got the hangman. As for the lucky one, his triumph is only temporary. Let a fourth workman make his appearance, strong enough to fast every other day, and his price will run down still lower; then there will be a new outcast, a new recruit for the prison perhaps?"

This shows how in times of higher unemployment it will be possible for labors to underbid each other causing greater famine and starvation for families that need higher wages. He also demonstrates how cheapness may affect the middle class by summing up the advantages of the unlimited competition.

"According to the political economists of the school of Adam Smith and Leon Say, cheapness is the word in which may be summed up the advantages of unlimited competition. But why persist in considering the effect of cheapness with a view only to the momentary advantage of the consumer? Cheapness is advanta¬geous to the consumer at the cost of introducing the seeds of ruinous anarchy among the producers. Cheapness is, so to speak, the hammer with which the rich among the producers crush their poorer rivals. Cheapness is the trap into which the daring specu¬lators entice the hard-workers. Cheapness is the sentence of death to the producer on a small scale who has no money to invest in the purchase of machinery that his rich rivals can easily procure. Cheapness is the great instrument in the hands of monopoly; it absorbs the small manufacturer, the small shopkeeper, the small proprietor; it is, in one word, the destruction of the middle classes for the advantage of a few industrial oligarchs"

Blanc claims that cheapness is the tool that industrial giants can use to crush smaller middle class competitors. These more wealthy individuals can use their higher levels of investment to create a product for less cost which will drive the consumers away from the higher priced competitors. The middle class will not be able to afford to decrease prices and will eventually be driven out of the industry.

Victor-Prosper Considerant

Considerant argument is the wastefulness and the immorality that is cause by the arrangement for distributing the produce of the country among the various consumers. With the interest of the trader being opposed to that of the consumer and producer. The trader wants to buy low from the producer and sell high to the consumer. He has eleven main reason for why this causes social unrest.

"1stly. He holds both Production and Consumption under his yoke, because both must come to him either finally for the products to be consumed, or at first for the raw materials to be worked up. 2ndly. It robs society by its enormous profits - profits levied upon the consumer and the producer, and altogether out of proportion to the services rendered, for which a twentieth of the persons actually employed would be sufficient. 3rdly. It robs society by the subtraction of its productive forces; taking off from productive labour nineteen-twentieths of the agents of trade who are mere parasites. 4thly. It robs society by the adulteration of products, pushed at the present day beyond all bounds. 5thly. It robs society by accumulations, artificial or not, in consequence of which vast quantities of goods, collected in one place, are damaged and destroyed for want of a sale. 6thly. Commerce robs society, moreover, by all the loss, damage, and waste that follows from the extreme scattering of products in millions of shops, and by the multiplication and complication of carriage. 7thly. It robs society by shameless and unlimited usury- usury absolutely appalling. 8thly. It robs society by innumerable bankruptcies, for the daily accidents of our commercial system, political events, and any kind of disturbance, must usher in a day when the trade, having incurred obligations beyond his means, is no longer able to meet them; his failure, whether fraudulent or not, must be a severe blow to his creditors. 9thly. Commerce robs society by the independence and irresponsibility which permits it to buy at the epochs when the producers are forced to sell and compete with one another, in order to procure money for their rent and necessary expenses of production. 10thly. It robs society by a considerable drawing off of capital, which will return to productive industry when commerce plays its proper subordinate part, and is only an agency carrying on transactions between the producers (more or less distant) and the great centres of consumption – the communistic societies. 11thly. It robs society by the monopolizing or buying up of raw materials."

He also continues with one of the cardinal principals of this school.

"So long as no method of attractive labour has been devised, it will continue to be true that 'there must be many poor in order that there may be a few rich', a mean and hateful saying, which we hear every day quoted as an eternal truth from the mouths of people who call themselves Christians or philosophers! It is very easy to understand that oppression, trickery, and especially poverty, are the permanent and fatal appanage of every state of society charac¬terized by the dislike of work, for, in this case, there is nothing but poverty that will force men to labour. And the proof of this is, that if every one of all the workers were to become suddenly rich, nineteen-twentieths of all the work now done would be abandoned."

He strongly believes that for there to be a rich upper class there must be a lower class for them to rule over and exploit, and the fact that is can be seen in society proves to him that socialism is the only way to distribute the wealth and relieve the people of their poverty. Mill ends Considerant by using one of his final quotes to express how easily he believes this state of rulers will be reached.

"This feudalism would be constituted as soon as the largest part of the industrial and territorial property of the nation belongs to a minority which absorbs all its revenues, while the great majority, chained to the work-bench or labouring on the soil, must be content to gnaw the pittance which is cast to them."

Mill Thoughts on Socialism

Mill takes great care to portray the socialist from their point of views so the reader will be able to better understand how Mill is examining their way of thought. He has done this by including entire pages of their work in his book “On Liberty” and by also explaining their ideas in his own worlds. Mill now wants to be able to show how the socialist objectives may be wrong.

Mills first point is that it is yet to be proven in any country in the civilized world where the ordinary wages of labor are declining, and in fact in many areas the wage rates are not only increasing but increasing rapidly. He uses this fact to attack Blanc’s view of the working class and his example of how competition will drive worker wages down. Blanc also makes the mistake of assuming that since population growth is increasing that there will be less subsistence for the people as a whole. Mill indicates that population does grow at a greater power but it is not great enough to make subsistence more severe. This issue was thought to be one of the weakest for socialism but it may prove to be on of the strongest, the idea that as population grows exponentially the subsistence may not be able to increase as fast, is one that is still feared today.

Mill then moves to the idea of competition. He believes that socialist general have an imperfect and one-sided notion of the idea. They forget that although competition is the cause of high prices it is also the cause of low ones, and when the competition is perfectly free of both sides, with the buyers of labors and of commodities competing with one another as well as sellers. This keeps the price neither to high or to low, but to reduce all to a general average, which socialist find desirable because it hinders their ideas of socialism. Blanc also believed that such competition would hurt the middle class and drive them out of the market. Mill believes that in free competition such ability would be imaginary because it would be impossible for the monopolist to charge any price they wanted. The use of competition can also be used to keep down the price of commodities. This is done by the competition between the producers and the consumers because any saving in price from the purchase will be passed on to the customers. Mill strongly believes that competition is the best security for cheapness, but not for a security in quality.

This leads Mill into the socialist theme of vices and how they would be combated in a freely competitive market. It would be extremely hard for the consumer to determine if the product is a fraud even at the lower price while markets are increasing in size. This poses a larger problem for the honest merchant that is selling at a higher price because he can be hurt by the competitor’s ability to sell for much less. Mill believes that the answer to such problems would be the introduction of more efficient laws that would be costly enough that frauds would not even be produced. Mill also continues with how receives the profits of labor. He explains that if the owner invests $20,000 into the business and receives $2,000 out for his investment, he is not receiving all the benefits. For the investment also paid for the wage of the labors and the original $20,000 is gone into the company, and not just supporting the happiness of just one person. Therefore the wage is part of the fruit of the labor.

Mill further looks at the socialist view versus the current state and believes that although there may be problems with the society, these issues are not hurrying us into a start of general indigence and slavery from which only socialism can save us. The issues that face the society are great by he feels that they are not increase but instead slowing diminishing. Further the society will not suddenly pass from suffering into happiness with the adoption of socialism. Mill does not answer if socialism will fail or succeed but rather states that there maybe is some success on experimental scales by actual trials.

The difficulties of Socialism

All the ideas of socialism come down to one of the most important issues in Mill thinking, that of human happiness. The theories of socialism dealing with property, wealth, and division of labor mean nothing if the person participating in the society are not happy with what they are doing. Along with the theme of happiness Mill also finds many other problems that are facing socialism. The appointment of managers, how labor is divided, how receives the benefits, vices, and private property.

In the Communist society the managers that are in charge of the labors would receive the same equal dividends as the other members of the association. This poses a problem for mill because what is the incentive for the manager to produce more while they will only receive the same amount as the rest of the company. Also if the managers are receive the same wage they will most likely have less control over the worker because they are seen as on the same level and not in a role of authority. These managers would also be less likely to strike out on new paths for uncertain advantages because they would not be receiving the same reward that private managers would for new innovation. When new technology would be found it would be distributed to all firms thus not really increasing the share of any ones stock. This then continues to the ordinary workers who have no incentives to increase their ability or intensity of their work, only their share of the general interest, and in doing their work honestly and energetically. Therefore it seems that Communism has no advantages in labor which can not be reached using private property and competition.

Another difficulty that arises in Communism is the appointment of laborers. Since every person in the community is receiving the same share there needs to be a way to share the harder and unpleasant jobs. The Communists theory is to have rotating job placement where every member of the society works every kind of labor. Mill believes that this almost completely sacrifices the advantages of the division of labor. It would require extensive retraining and also require laborers to be placed into position that are not best suited for them. This would greatly decrease the community’s ability to produce quality inexpensive goods, and in return have a negative effect in their overall economy. A Communist society also supposes that there will be no quarreling about material interests and all work will be done for the love of the society. Mills uses vices to better understand how such a community would be difficult to arrange. For there will always be laborers that will what their share of the profits without exerting as much effort. Every member of the society will not have the same mutual love and unity for the community, and this will cause members to distrust one another which will eventually lead to the Communist institutions failure.

Responses to Mill

Mill vs. Darwin

John Stuart Mill, along with Herbert Spencer, follow an egalitarian ideology. Mill believes that all people within a society shall receive political, economic and social equality. Simply put, everyone counts as one. The theory of egalitarianism is contended by Charles Darwin, who takes an opposite approach. In accordance to Darwin's famous "natural selection" theories, he believes a hierarchy evolves since people are fighting for the "general good." The "general good" revolves around individual utility, referred to as a capacity of happiness. The contending views of Mill and Darwin can be found in Vanity of the Philosopher?

Mill contends the topic of "capacity of happiness," with an utilitarian views, Mill believes that if they majority of people are happy, then our society as a whole has a high capacity of happiness. Whereas Darwin carries his natural selection theory in explaining evolution, Mill agrees with Spencer in stating that sympathy is the backbone behind evolution. One's capacity of sympathy is crucial, and creates a backbone of moral obligation, justice and beneficence. In evaluating happiness, Darwin relies on a more quantitative backing. Darwin believes that people can judge happiness, but not perfection. For Mill, he agrees with Spencer in that a "calculus of social welfare" exists when people in a society are connected by sympathy.

Economics as a Dismal Science?

Early economists such as Thomas Carlyle have pinned economics as the "dismal science." Based of Thomas Robert Malthus's theory, Carlyle believes that starvation will occur, since the rate of human growth far exceeds the food supply. Mill attacks Carlyle's viewpoint in his book, Principles of Political Economy 1848.

Mill believes that labeling economics as a "dismal science" is highly far-fetched and radical. Such a dilemma should not occur given that humans control and limit their population. Mill states that humans need to value both limiting growth and protecting the environment, which should take priority over economic growth. Economic growth can be labeled as a catalyst towards disaster. There exist a variety of benefits when limiting human growth. Clearly, we are preserving our available food supply and minimize the poverty percentage. Basically, the study of economics should be pinned for blame, rather people need to exercise better judgment when it comes to growth rates.

In Principles of Political Economy, Mill goes on to discuss his pro-socialism standpoints. Mill begins by stating that there is little to no economic research that disproves the workings of socialism. Again, Mill draws on his "capacity of happiness" arguments. Published in 1861, Mill wrote a book Utilitarianism, which captured his happiness arguments. The welfare of a society and moreover, humanity comes from their degree of happiness.

Human Rights and Slavery

Mill's views on humans rights and slavery derived from Thomas Carlyle's letter, Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country. Carlyle has written a variety of pieces explaining his pro-slavery stance. Carlyle defends his viewpoints by stating that slaves contain weaker genes than their owners, plus supports local economies. Mill attacks Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country as a clear and strong opponent to slavery. Mill stresses the importance of human rights.

In Carlyle's letter, he states that blacks are not mentally capable of handling the responsibility of being emancipated. He pins the blacks as scapegoats for the failing sugars market, since they are too consumed with pumpkins and are not concerned with the sugar crops. Carlyle is clearly fixed in the idea that whites were placed on earth to control labor, and blacks are meant to be laborers, with no exceptions. In the West Indies, crops are extremely important to the economy and lifestyles of the white men, therefore it is the obligation of the blacks to cultivate the crops. On top of this, Carlyle states that God demands productivity from the black men in the fields.

Carlyle constantly refers to the blacks as sub-human creatures. In his texts, he uses terms such as "two-legged cattle." His language and overall attitude leaves no room for translation. Carlyle believes that blacks are unworthy of human rights, simply because they contain more animal qualities than human.

Mill promptly addresses Carlyle's claims in what is referred to as "The Negro Question." First, he takes a very objective and quantitative approach to disprove Carlyle;s claim that the sugar market declined due to the lazy nature of the black laborers. Mill uses statistical analysis to show the blacks' laziness is not correlated with the output of the sugar market. Carlyle's fundamental argument is that the blacks provide a low value of work, but Mill refutes this in an objective manner. Mill argues that Carlyle's claims are too lose, due to the fact that he uses fluffy qualitative arguments with little credibility in his backings. In addition, Mill draws upon morality and religious concepts to support his backing.

Mill points out that Carlyle expresses a clear inequality between colors.

      ... prays Heaven that all persons, black and white, may be put in possession of this "divine right of being 
      compelled, if permitted will not serve, to do what work they are appointed for."  But as this cannot be  
      conveniently managed just yet, he will begin with the blacks, and will make them work for certain whites not 
      working at all; that so "the eternal purpose and supreme will" may be fulfilled, and "injustice," which is 
      "for ever accursed," may cease. (27)

Another main point that Carlyle and Mill debate is over the crops that the Caribbean blacks grew in the West Indies. Mill believes that Carlyle unjustly pins the Caribbean blacks for wasting precious farm land. He believes that they were sluggish in producing spices for the Europeans, because they were growing food for themselves, which is viewed as highly unacceptable. Mill contends this by trying to decipher a clearer definition of "spices." What are spices? Are spices noble objects? What do the Gods view as noble spices? Pumpkins, sugars, coffee, cinnamon? Does a noble taste rely on its significance to life or sense of taste? All in all, Mill feels that "noble spices" are highly subjective, therefore the black slaves were being wrongfully mistreated.

The interesting component to Mill's arguments is that they are well ahead of his time. His viewpoints were published in 1850, slightly Pre-Civil War era. Although slavery and racism towards blacks were prevalent at this time, Mill spoke the viewpoint of the minority mind. The majority of people viewed Carlyle's opinions as correct, which seems a bit comical in today's time period.