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Trade, Piecework, and the Liberty Principle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2024
Abstract
John Stuart Mill does not contradict himself in On Liberty with respect to the issue of piecework, contrary to Dale E. Miller's charge that he does. Miller fails to understand that the liberty principle (LP) limits society's authority to regulate trade in that society has no legitimate authority to prohibit or make unduly expensive a buyer's post-trade use of his purchased product in self-regarding ways. LP gives an employer who has purchased labor under a trade contract in a free and fair competitive labor market a right to conclude a separate mutually consensual self-regarding piecework contract with any skilled worker already in his employ.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Miller, Dale E., “Principle, Pragmatism, and Piecework in On Liberty,” Utilitas 35 (2023): pp. 312–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 313.
2 On Liberty, CW XVIII, pp. 293, 287. References to Mill's works are to The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 33 vols. ed. by John M. Robson (Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press and Routledge, 1963–91), and include volume and page numbers.
3 Dale E. Miller, “Piecework,” p. 318.
4 Miller says that “the passage” in which trade is described as a social act “reflects Mill's considered view” (“Piecework,” p. 318). He also claims that Mill rejects “doctrinaire libertarianism.”
5 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
6 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
7 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
8 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
9 For Mill's detailed discussion of “large exceptions” to laissez-faire, see Principles of Political Economy, CW III, pp. 913–71.
10 Miller, “Piecework,” p. 313.
11 On Liberty, CW XVIII, pp. 260, 294.
12 For Miller's statement that “the singular object” is to defend LP, see his “The Place of ‘The Liberty of Thought and Discussion’ in On Liberty,” Utilitas 33 (2021): 134.
13 Our potential disagreement over Mill's idea of harm arises because it is conceivable that a moral right or duty can be violated despite the victim suffering no non-consensual empirical harm. Admittedly, this possibility would rarely occur in civil societies with predominantly liberal moralities. But not all civil societies are liberal. When rights and duties are recognized whose violation does not imply any non-consensual empirical harm, such as a duty not to appear in public in the innocent garb of a foreign culture, the implication is that society may regulate what Feinberg, Joel (Harmless Wrongdoing (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1988))Google Scholar calls “harmless immoralities.” But these concerns may be left aside for present purposes.
14 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
15 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293.
16 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 293, emphasis added.
17 Miller, “Piecework,” pp. 318–19.
18 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 294, emphasis added.
19 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 295.
20 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 226, emphasis added.
21 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 224, emphasis added.
22 See On Liberty, CW XVII, pp. 294–95.
23 Hay, Douglas, “England, 1562–1875: The Law and Its Uses,” in Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562–1955, eds. Hay, Douglas and Craven, Paul (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), pp. 59–108Google Scholar. As the essays in this volume show, the Masters and Servants legislation continued to flourish throughout the British Empire until the middle of the twentieth century long after it had been repealed in the mother country. Indentured servants (workers in various trades), apprentices, and the like were reportedly treated no better than, and at times worse than, chattel slaves.
24 Naidu, Suresh and Yuchtman, Noam, “Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in Nineteenth Century Industrial Britain,” American Economic Review 103 (2013): 107–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The authors argue that the Masters and Servants legislation gave workers an opportunity to make credible commitments to long-term contracts at low wages so as to guarantee employment through booms and busts instead of enduring cycles of high wages and no work without the contract.
25 Miller, “Piecework,” p. 317, footnote omitted.
26 “Piecework,” p. 314, quoting Mill, Political Economy, CW III, p. 783n. Miller also notes that Mill elsewhere objects to “unfairly low” piece rates; see, e.g., Chapters on Socialism, CW V, p. 743.
27 Miller, “Piecework,” p. 313, footnote omitted.
28 Mill remarks that “judicious employers always resort to [piecework] when the work admits of being put out in definite portions, without the necessity of too troublesome a surveillance to guard against inferiority in the execution” (Political Economy, CW II, p. 140, quoted by Miller, “Piecework,” p. 313).
29 Miller provides apt quotes from Mill's writings to illustrate these views (“Piecework,” pp. 314–16).
30 I ignore the fact that the standard also rewards owners of capital for their smart or lucky investments even if they are otherwise idle.
31 McCabe, Helen, John Stuart Mill: Socialist (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2021)Google Scholar, cited by Miller, “Piecework,” p. 315.
32 See, e.g., Riley, Jonathan, “J.S. Mill's Liberal Utilitarian Assessment of Capitalism versus Socialism,” Utilitas 8 (1996): 39–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Riley, Jonathan, “Introduction,” in J.S. Mill: Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism, ed. Riley, Jonathan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008Google Scholar, abridged World's Classics edition), pp. vii–xlvii.
33 Political Economy, CW II, p. 210, quoted by Miller, “Piecework,” p. 314.
34 On Liberty, CW XVIII, p. 226.