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Navigating by the North Star: The Role of the ‘Ideal’ in John Stuart Mill's View of ‘Utopian’ Schemes and the Possibilities of Social Transformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2019

Helen McCabe Open the ORCID record for Helen McCabe [Opens in a new window]
Helen McCabe*
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University of Nottingham
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Abstract

The role of the ‘ideal’ in political philosophy is currently much discussed. These debates cast useful light on Mill's self-designation as ‘under the general designation of Socialist’. Considering Mill's assessment of potential property-relations on the grounds of their desirability, feasibility and ‘accessibility’ (disambiguated as ‘immediate-availability’, ‘eventual-availability’ and ‘conceivable-availability’) shows us not only how desirable and feasible he thought ‘utopian’ socialist schemes were, but which options we should implement. This, coupled with Mill's belief that a socialist ideal should guide social reforms (as the North Star guides mariners), reveals much more clearly the extent of his socialist commitments (even if he thought political economists would be concerned with forms of individual property for some time to come). Moreover, this framework for assessments of ‘ideal’ institutions makes a useful contribution to an ongoing contemporary debate.

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Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 291 - 309
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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27 Mill, Principles, p. 211.

28 My thanks to Dale E. Miller for advice on improving this terminology.

29 Mill, Principles, pp. 201–10 and 775; Mill, Chapters, pp. 737–9.

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31 Mill, Principles, p. 203.

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35 Mill, Principles, p. 210.

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45 Mill, Chapters, pp. 739–42.

46 Mill, Chapters, pp. 745–6.

47 Mill, Chapters, p. 746; Mill, Principles, p. 207.

48 Mill, Chapters, pp. 202–8 and 775; Mill, Chapters, p. 746.

49 Mill, Principles, p. 207.

50 Mill, Principles, p. 209.

51 Mill, Principles, pp. 203 and 210; Mill, Chapters, p. 739.

52 Mill, Chapters, pp. 742 and 746. See also Mill, Autobiography, p. 241 and Mill, Letter 26, CW XII (Toronto, 1963), pp. 31–3.

53 Mill, Principles, p. 207. On this, see also Persky, J., The Political Economy of Progress (Oxford, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 70.

54 E.g. Dale Miller, E., ‘Mill's “Socialism”’, Philosophy, Politics and Economics 2 (2003), pp. 213–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 225–6.

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57 Mill, Autobiography, p. 241.

58 Mill, Chapters, p. 746.

59 Mill, Chapters, p. 746.

60 This correspondence has been used to support what Claeys calls ‘the hen-pecked thesis’: that Taylor was the ‘Socialist’, not Mill (Claeys, Mill and Paternalism (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 36–42). Though we lack her half of the correspondence, we can probably say she expressed the thought that communism was eventually available, and sooner, than Mill at that point believed. But we cannot say how long she held that view once she had heard Mill's thoughts: certainly, the position in the 1849 edition of Principles (some parts of which Mill records as being co-written) is that of Mill's letters, not her supposed position (see Mill, Principles, pp. 203–4). On the other hand, Mill's position did eventually change – not just in Principles but also in Chapters, where communism is acknowledged to be eventually available, even immediately available to some.

61 Mill, Letter 24, CW III (Toronto, 1965), p. 1030.

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76 Mill, Principles, pp. 210–13.

77 Mill, Principles, pp. 210–14.

78 Mill, Principles, pp. 210–14.

79 Mill, Letter 64, CW XII (Toronto, 1963), p. 134.

80 Mill, Letter 64, CW XII, p. 211; Mill, Chapters, p. 747.

81 Mill, Principles, pp. 1028 and 213.

82 Mill, Chapters, p. 748.

83 For a more detailed consideration of Mill and Fourierism, see McCabe, Helen, ‘John Stuart Mill and Fourierism: “Association”, “Friendly Rivalry” and Distributive Justice’, Global Intellectual History 4.1 (2018), pp. 35–6Google Scholar.

84 Mill, Letter 1749, CW XVII (Toronto 1972), pp. 1910–12. This connection also shows that J. Salwyn Schapiro is not quite correct when he states that ‘Mill knew nothing of Marx or Marxism’ (Schapiro, , ‘John Stuart Mill, Pioneer of Democratic Liberalism in England’, Journal of the History of Ideas 4.2 (1943), pp. 127–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 147). See also Persky, Progress, pp. 155–68 for Mill and ‘echoes’ of Marx.

85 Mill, Claims, p. 709.

86 Mill, Claims, p. 749; Mill, Letter 1749, p. 1911.

87 Mill, Chapters, p. 749.

88 Mill, Chapters, pp. 709 and 748–9; Helen Taylor, ‘Preliminary Notice’, CW V (Toronto, 1967), p. 705, and Mill, Chapters, pp. 748–9.

89 Mill, Principles, p. 775.

90 Mill, Principles, pp. 211 and 775–94.

91 Mill, Principles, pp. 782–4.

92 Mill, Principles, pp. 794–6. For more on Mill and ‘friendly rivalry’ see McCabe, ‘John Stuart Mill and Fourierism’.

93 Mill, Principles, pp. 775–94.

94 Persky, Progress, p. 148.

95 Mill did not obviously think desirable schemes had to be feasible. Certainly he thought schemes we ought to implement had to be both desirable and feasible, but that is not quite the same thing.

96 Mill, Principles, pp. 210–11; Mill, Letter 27, CW XII, p. 37.

97 Mill, Principles, p. 794.

98 Mill, Principles, p. 208.

99 Mill, Principles, p. 360; Mill, Chapters, p. 713. See also Persky, Progress, pp. 109–21.

100 Mill, Principles, p. 210.

101 Mill, Principles, p. 208.

102 Mill, Principles, p. 931; Mill, Cooperation, CW XXVIII (Toronto, 1988), pp. 5–9; Mill, Autobiography, p. 239.

103 Mill's concern about rewarding those who already have most chimes with some of the concerns of contemporary luck-egalitarians: unequal outcomes are justified if they are the outcome of choice but not if they are the outcome of bad or good ‘brute luck’. However, I do not think Mill's overall position is rightly characterized as luck-egalitarian. Persky claims ‘that modern attitudes toward luck can be traced directly to Mill’ and that ‘Mill's theory of progress suggests an attractive radical reconciliation of the two camps of the modern philosophical debate on luck’ (Persky, Progress, p. 199). I agree that Mill is both interested in the normative problem of luck, and not rightly considered a luck-egalitarian, but I disagree that he thought ‘justice would require a move from something like “democratic equality” to the achievement of something like “luck egalitarianism” ’, or that these are ‘succeeding stages in the conquest of poverty and the historical achievement of justice’ (Persky, Progress, p. 200) for Mill if by this is meant that Mill endorsed a luck-egalitarian position as ideal (and not just better than contemporary capitalism). For though Mill endorses something which looks rather akin to Dworkinian luck-egalitarianism in his sketch of a potentially ideal system of private property, Blancian principles of justice are not luck-egalitarian.

104 Mill, Principles, p. 210 and Mill, Restraints of Communism (Toronto, 1986), pp. 1179–80.

105 Mill, Principles, p. 210.

106 Mill, Principles, p. 209.

107 Mill, Principles, p. 209.

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112 Mill, Autobiography, p. 239.

113 Mill, Autobiography, p. 239.

114 Mill, Autobiography, p. 239.

115 Mill, Autobiography, p. 239.

116 Mill, Fontana and Prati, p. 678.

117 Mill, Fontana and Prati, p. 678.

118 Mill, Fontana and Prati, p. 207.

119 Mill, Fontana and Prati, p. 208.

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121 See also Baum, ‘Mill and Liberal Socialism’, p. 104; Mueller, Mill and French Thought, p. 57; Stafford, ‘Paradigmatic Liberal’, pp. 336–7; Riley, ‘Capitalism versus Socialism’, pp. 41 and 48; and Persky, Progress, pp. 70–88, on not confusing Mill's commitment to individual liberty with simple endorsement of laissez-faire economics.

122 Mill, Principles, pp. 800–4 and 936; Mill, Letter 72, CW XII (Toronto, 1963), p. 152; Mill, Attack on Literature, CW XXII (Toronto, 1986), p. 320; Mill, The Gorgias, CW XI (Toronto, 1978), p. 149.

123 Mill, Principles, pp. 936–71; Mill, Liberty, pp. 292–310.

124 Persky, Progress, p. xix. See also pp. 86–8.

125 Mill, Principles, pp. 201, 205–9 and 758–94 and Claims, pp. 708–36; McCabe, , ‘John Stuart Mill's Analysis of Capitalism and the Road to Socialism’, A New Social Question: Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia, ed. Harrison, Casey (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 8–26Google Scholar.

126 Mill, Principles, pp. 758–94 and Claims, pp. 363–89.

127 Mill, Principles, pp. 207–8, 223–6, 387–8, 755, 766–972 and 977; Mill, Chapters, p. 382; Mill, Claims, p. 382; Mill, Letter 1690, CW XVII (Toronto, 1972), p. 1848; Mill, , The Subjection of Women, CW XXI (Toronto, 1984)Google Scholar, p. 301; Mill, , The Case of Mary Ann Parsons I, CW XXV (Toronto, 1986), pp. 1151–3Google Scholar; Mill, , The Case of Mary Bird, CW XXV (Toronto, 1986), pp. 1153–7Google Scholar; Mill, , The Case of Mary Ann Parsons II, CW XXV (Toronto, 1986), pp. 1164–7Google Scholar; Mill, , The Case of Susan Moir, CW XXV (Toronto, 1986), pp. 1165–7Google Scholar; Claeys, Mill and Paternalism, pp. 159–60. See also Persky, Progress, pp. 91–108 and 122–32. Mill also briefly mentions the regime of individual property which might be adopted by ‘colonists’ arriving in an uninhabited land. Persky describes these as ‘not Mill at his best’ as he offers ‘in place of a strong historical argument … a rather rarefied thought-experiment’ (Persky, Progress, p. 69), a criticism with which I do not agree, seeing some strength in a thought-experiment over historical description in getting people first to see that property rights were not as natural and immutable as people assumed them to be (cf. Mill, Chapters, p. 749) and second that it was not impossible to conceive of people actually adopting principles of communal property. Of course, it may have been more than a ‘rarefied thought-experiment’ – Mill, after all, was not opposed to colonialism. But he can hardly have considered countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand to be ‘uninhabited’.

128 Mill, Principles, pp. 793–4; Mill, Chapters, p. 748.

129 Mill, Principles, p. 208.

130 Mill, Principles, pp. 793–4. Baum says: ‘Mill is vague about whether such a cooperative system should be regarded as a reformed type of capitalism or as a form of socialism’ (‘Liberal Socialism’, p. 106). But as Iorwerth Prothero rightly points out, in Mill's context this ‘thick’ form of cooperation was ‘the most important aspect of socialism’ in the period (Prothero, , Radical Artisans in England and France, 1830–1870 (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 145). See also Mill, Cooperation, pp. 5–9.

131 Miller, ‘Mill's “Socialism” ’, p. 213.

132 Riley, ‘Capitalism versus Socialism’, p. 41.

133 Kurer, ‘Mill and Utopian Socialism’, p. 229.

134 Kurer, ‘Mill and Utopian Socialism’, p. 229.

135 Kurer, ‘Mill and Utopian Socialism’, p. 229; Mill, Principles, p. 672.

136 Kurer, ‘Mill and Utopian Socialism’, p. 229.

137 Persky, Progress, pp. xvi and xix; Mill, Autobiography, pp. 239–41.

138 Mill, Claims, p. 382.

139 Mill, Principles, pp. 775 and 210; Mill, Communism, pp. 1179–8.

140 McCabe, Helen, ‘Good Housekeeping? Re-Assessing John Stuart Mill's Position on the Gendered Division of Labour’, History of Political Thought 38.1 (2018), pp. 135–55Google Scholar, and ‘John Stuart Mill, Utility and the Family: Attacking “the Citadel of the Enemy” ’, Review Internationale de Philosophie/International Review of Philosophy 272.2 (2015), pp. 225–35.

141 Mill, Coleridge, CW X (Toronto, 1969), pp. 147–8.

142 Cf. Stafford, ‘Paradigmatic Liberal’.

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145 Wright, Erik Olin, Envisioning Real Utopias (London, 2010), pp. 20–5Google Scholar; Buchanan, Alan, Justice, Legitimacy and Self-Determination (Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar, p. 61; Leopold, ‘Marx and Engels’, pp. 433–66; Leopold, ‘On Marxian Utopophobia’, p. 133; Leopold, ‘A Cautious Embrace’, p. 29.

146 My thanks for comments on this article by several anonymous reviewers, Dale E. Miller, David Leopold, Matthew Clayton, Adam Swift, Ben Holland, members of the CELPA seminar group at the University of Warwick, and participants at a workshop on Mill held at the University of Southampton where I presented an early version of this article, especially Brian McElwee, Ben Saunders, Chris MacLeod and Piers Norris Turner. And in fond memory of Erik Olin Wright, who died the day I found out this article had been accepted for publication.