What Did John Stuart Mill Proposed To Fix The Problem Of Industrial Capitalism?

McCabe, Helen (2015) John Stuart Mill's assay of capitalism and the road to socialism. In: Harrison, Casey, (ed.) A New Social Question : Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 8-22. ISBN 9781443883740

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Abstract

In Principles of Political Economy, John Stuart Mill both provides an assessment of the workability and desirability of some prominent contemporary forms of socialism, and sketches his own view of how guild might be transformed from capitalism into socialism. His cess of gimmicky forms of socialism–particularly Owenite communism, Saint-Simonism and Fourierism–in the main determines, non that the schemes are themselves wholly unworkable, nor that the criticisms socialists level against contemporary capitalism are entirely unwarranted, but that a better solution could exist found which would also non involve their potential bug (particularly for the free evolution of individuality). Co-operative socialism, which avoids these problems, whilst also providing solutions to the issues of capitalism, is far more favourably reviewed. It is true that Mill's language regarding the transformation of capitalism is possibilistic rather than deterministic or normatively prescriptive (often using "may" rather than, say, "volition"), just there are both clues in his work that he idea some of these changes would come about (perhaps so long as dominant class-involvement did not actively seek to prevent it), and that it should–after all, Mill describes a like set of reforms as his "Utopia" and alleged that, past the mid-1840s, his political philosophy was "nether the general designation of Socialist".

Although the Saint-Simonian scheme called for state-wide adoption of socialism, and the Owenite and Fourierist schemes Mill assessed chosen for modest intentional communities, they were linked by their demand for whole-calibration adoption of socialism, and, therefore, for total, immediate, root-and-co-operative reform. Factory's preferred model of transformation to socialism is piece-meal, peaceful, small-scale, incremental, voluntaristic, organic and grass-roots-led–simply his proposed, and favoured, transformation is no-less radical or, in the terminate, wide-reaching. Although wary of being too prescriptive, the socialist proposals Mill did make, ultimately, call for some country-action, provision and ownership (at both national and local level), aslope agricultural and industrial producer- and consumer-cooperatives, which could be every bit communal in their living arrangements as members wished, and which would implement only distributions of the surpluses of co-operation according to principles of justice democratically determined by all members. He as well envisaged radical reform to the family, to religion, to the social ethos and, ultimately, to human nature itself. This chapter sketches, firstly, Factory's analysis of commercialism, and, secondly, his preferred road to socialism.

Detail Type:

Book Item

Subjects:

J Political Science > JC Political theory

Divisions:

Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):

Socialism, Capitalism

Publisher:

Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Place of Publication:

Cambridge

ISBN:

9781443883740

Book Championship:

A New Social Question : Capitalism, Socialism and Utopia

Editor:

Harrison, Casey

Official Engagement:

2015

Dates:

Engagement	Event
2015	Published

Page Range:

pp. 8-22

Status:

Non Peer Reviewed

Publication Status:

Published

Access rights to Published version:

Restricted or Subscription Access

Related URLs:

Publisher

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