Mill and Democracy

12 September 2008

What is the purpose of politics?

• Classical thought

• Medieval Christian thought

• Machiavelli

• Hobbes

• Rousseau

• Mill

Mill and liberty

• One should be free to choose whenever one’s choices do not directly harm others: liberty is primarily the ability to choose

• Liberty as choice (Mill, Hobbes) is different from liberty as independence (Rousseau)

• Mill suggests that the point of politics is (ultimately) to maximize liberty

What is the best form of government or political regime?

• Plato and Aristotle

• Rousseau

• Mill

What is the best form of government or political regime?

• Mill’s arguments emphasize the instrumental and moral benefits of participation in politics:– The best form of government helps everyone protect their interests by giving them some power to stand up for them

– It also helps improve everyone’s character, giving them more other-regarding concerns

What is the best form of government?

• The best form of government is representative: it is our form of government

Is our form of government good for everyone?

• Is it good for Fiji?

• Is it good for Burma/Myanmar?

• Is it good for China?

Preconditions for representative government to work

• What cultural conditions might be necessary for representative government to work?– Under some conditions, representative

government is impossible– Under some conditions, some other form of

government is better, even if representative government is possible

When is representative government impossible?

• Willingness of the people to have a representative government– When is this an issue?

• Willingness and ability of the people to do what is necessary for its preservation– Otherwise, the executive will necessarily

encroach on it

• Willingness and ability of the people to fulfill its duties

The duties of citizens in representative government

• The citizen needs to be able and willing to use the vote for more than their private interest– You need informed citizens who have an

interest in the public good, i.e., who can think beyond their narrow self-interest

• Whenever this does not happen, representative politics devolves into mere factionalism and ultimately into despotism

When are other forms of government better?

• When the people are too independent and insubordinate (early stage of civilization)– Military despotism

• When the people are too passive and oppressed (later stage of civilization)– Absolutist monarchy

When are other forms of government better?

• When the people’s moral horizons are too narrow and parochial (early stages of civilization)– Absolutist, centralizing monarchy

• When there is no coherent people (early stages of civilization)– Absolutist, centralizing monarchy

When are other forms of government better?

• When the people has a generally low level of culture, is greatly ignorant, or has a “defective” national character– Government by foreigners or through the

happy accident of a monarch of genius

• When some part of the population is much better than the other– Monarchy with some representative but weak

institutions