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2017 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

3. Democracy and Economic Progress in the work of J. S. Mill

verfasst von : Michel S. Zouboulakis

Erschienen in: Democracy and an Open-Economy World Order

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

A growing number of theoretical and empirical studies is actually devoted to the interaction between the democratic organization of modern societies and the economic institutions that stimulate sustainable growth. Classical Political Economists also had some particularly elaborated positions concerning this issue. We present here the arguments that John Stuart Mill has advanced in defense of the model of representative Democracy that benefits economic progress. Mill’s ideal system of plural voting aimed to extend the right to vote to every adult person—male or female—by avoiding at once the oppression of one class by another, through the balance of opposing sectional interests. Moreover, Mill insisted that the material conditions for individual and social improvement should concur with a self-sufficient and self-restrained, not by an affluent society. Democratic Governance of this conflict-less quasi-egalitarian society should be participatory and representative, two conditions that guarantee individual self-development, in a way that liberates individual genius and mental energy as the best means to promote social improvement.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Cyberspace Governance and State Sovereignty

Nächstes Kapitel Institutions, Democracy and Economic Development: On Not Throwing out the Liberal Baby with the Neoliberal Bathwater

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Mill was the founder of the radical reform movement called the ‘Utilitarian Society’ in 1822, at the age of 16, to become an independent MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868.

Mill has written at length on the French Revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Although he became very excited after the instauration of the Second Republic by Louis Bonaparte, hoping that it “would had the effect of republicanizing all Europe”, he was deeply disappointed after the Coup d’Etat of 1851. Cf. Thomas (1985: 92).

Mill was elected as an Independent Liberal, with no political and financial support. As he wrote in his Autobiography, “I was convinced that no numerous or influential portion of any electoral body, really wished to be represented by a person of my opinions; and that one who possessed no local connexion or popularity, and who did not choose to stand as the mere organ of a party, had small chance of being elected anywhere unless through the expenditure of money. […] I felt therefore, that I ought not to seek election to Parliament, much less to expend any money in producing it.” (1873: 206–207).

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Titel: Democracy and Economic Progress in the work of J. S. Mill
verfasst von: Michel S. Zouboulakis
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Democracy and an Open-Economy World Order
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52167-1

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-52168-8

Copyright-Jahr: 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52168-8_3