John Stuart Mill
From Conservapedia
John Stuart Mill (London, 1806 - Aviñón, France, 1873) was a British Member of Parliament, political writer, economist, and perhaps the most influential liberal thinker of the 19th century; he was also the last of the English classical economists.
Homeschooled by his father with the assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place (Following the principles of the Rousseau's Emilio). Mill supported laissez-faire economic policy but with social reforms like redistribution of wealth, shorter working days, and regulation of monopolies. Today he would be called a "moderate conservative" due to his support of some government controls over the economy. Mill was ahead of his time in advocating the development of labor unions and farm cooperatives, and emancipation (voting) by women. He sympathized with the Union in the American Civil War. He was also an avowed atheist.
In his highly influential essay, "On Liberty," Mill argued that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." He advocated freedom of speech, and generally freedom of action too. Mill also advocated a modified form of utilitarianism, a concept previously established by early 19th century thinker Jeremy Bentham, seeing laissez-faire economics and freedoms of conscience, expression, et al. as necessary to maximizing individual fulfillment within society.
In 1851, John Stuart Mill married Harriet Taylor. She was a significant influence on Mill's work and reinforced his advocacy of women's rights within Parliament and in print essays, prominently "The Subjection of Women."
Quotes
- He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion. [1]
- "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
