John Stuart Mill
(5/20/1806- 5/8/1873)

The eldest son of economist James Mill, John Stuart Mill was educated according to the rigorous expectations of his Benthamite father. He was taught Greek at age three and Latin at age eight. By the time he reached young adulthood, John Stuart Mill was a formidable intellectual, albeit an emotionally depressed one. After recovering from a nervous breakdown, he departed from his Benthamite teachings to shape his own view of political economy. He wrotePrinciples of Political Economy, which became the leading economics textbook for forty years after it was written. In it Mill elaborated on the ideas of David Ricardo and Adam Smith. He helped develop the ideas of economies of scale, opportunity cost, and comparative advantage in trade.

Mill was a strong believer in freedom, especially of speech and of thought. He defended freedom on two grounds. First, he argued, society's utility would be maximized if each person was free to make his or her own choices. (The "her" is particularly appropriate. Mill strongly believed, possibly due to the influence of his wife, Harriet Taylor, whom he idolized, that women were the equals of men. His bookThe Subjection of Women attacked the contemporary view of women's inherent inferiority.) Second, Mill believed that freedom was required for each person's development as a whole person. In his famous essayOn Liberty, Mill enunciated the principle 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." He wrote that we should be "without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong."

Surprisingly, though, Mill was not a consistent advocate of laissez-faire. His biographer, Alan Ryan, conjectures that Mill did not think of freedom of contract and property rights as being part of freedom. Mill favored inheritance taxation, trade protectionism, and regulation of employees' hours of work. Interestingly, although Mill favored mandatory education, he did not advocate mandatory schooling. Instead, he advocated a voucher system for schools and a state system of exams to ensure that people had reached a minimum level of learning.

Although Mill advocated universal suffrage, he suggested that the better-educated voters be given more votes. He emphatically defended this proposal from the charge that it was intended to let the middle class dominate. He argued that it would protect against class legislation and that anyone who was educated, including poor people, would have more votes.

Mill spent most of his working life with the East India Company. He joined it at age sixteen and worked there for thirty-eight years. He had little effect on policy, but his experience did affect his views on self-government.
"Two Letters on the Measure of Value", 1822,The Traveller

"Questions of Population", 1823, Black Dwarf

"War Expenditure", 1824,Westminster Rev

"Quarterly Review -- Political Economy", 1825,Westminster Rev

"Review of Miss Martineau's Tales", 1830,Examiner

"The Spirit of the Age", 1831,Examiner

"Essay on Bentham" 1838

Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, 1844

The Principles of Political Economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy, 1848

"The Negro Question", 1850,Fraser's Magazine

Dissertations and Discussions, 1859.

On Liberty, 1859 (Copies(1),(2),(3),(4))

Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform, 1859.

Considerations on Representative Government, 1860 (copy)

"Centralisation", 1862, Edinburgh Rev

"The Contest in America", 1862,Fraser's Magazine (repr. Harper's; alsopamphlet)

Utilitarianism 1863

An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,Vol. I, Vol. II, 1865.

Auguste Comte and Positivism, 1865.

Inaugural Address atSt. Andrews, 1867.

"Speech In Favor of Capital Punishment", 1868

England and Ireland, 1868.

"Thornton on Labor and its Claims", 1869,Fortnightly Review

The Subjection of Women, 1869 (copy 1,copy 2)

Chapters and Speeches on the Irish Land Question, 1870

On Nature, 1874

Autobiography of John Stuart Mill, 1873

Taken from:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Mill.html
http://www.allianceforlifelonglearning.org/er/tree.jsp?c=40198
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/mill.htmAlso see:

http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_841.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill
http://www.utilitarianism.com/jsmill.htm
http://www.jsmill.com/