James Mill, 1773-1836

Scottish writer, utilitarian philosopher, Radical political leader and prominent Classical economist.

Of humble background, James Mill (née Milne) was born in Montrose, Scotland, the son of a cobbler.  Encouraged by his mother, Mill attended to his studies and eventually, in 1790, enrolled at the University of Edinburgh with the help of a local gentleman, Sir John Stuart (after whom Mill later named his son).  At Edinburgh, he came under the influence of the philosopher Dugald Stewart and imbibed the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment, including the economic works of Adam Smith.

Originally intending to become a minister of the Church of Scotland, Mill received his M.A. in 1794.  Mill left Edinburgh in 1797, with a license to preach but gradually lost his faith.  He worked for a while as an itinerant tutor in Scotland until 1802, when Stuart invited Mill join him in London.  James Mill immigrated to England with a mind to become a professional writer.  He tried his hand at journalism, landing a steady job at the Literary Journal and feeling confident enough to marry Harriet Burrow in 1805.  However, the journal folded in 1806, and soon enough Mill's only source of income (often precarious) was as a freelance writer of articles, editorials and essays for a wide assortment of newspapers and journals, notably the rising Whig journal, The Edinburgh Review, founded by fellow Scottish immigrants.

While still at the Literary Journal in 1804, James Mill published his first economic treatise reviewing the history of the Corn Laws, calling for the removal of all export bounties and import duties on grains and criticizing Malthus for defending them.  Soon afterwards, he came across the tracts of Cobbett and Spence, who had made a series of controversial points: that land (rather than industry) was the source of wealth, that there were losses to foreign trade between nations, that the public debt was not a burden,  that taxes were productive and that crises were caused by a general glut of goods.  In response, James Mill wrote his Commerce Defended (1807) dismantling all these arguments one by one.   It was here that Mill articulated his version of Say's Law of Markets (after Say, of course, who's Traite he had reviewed in 1805).  Mill argued that "annual purchases and sales" will "always balance" (1807: p.82) so the excess supply of any good was necessarily counterbalanced by excess demand for other goods.  Or, more accurately, he argued that the overproduction of of one good had to be made from capital withdrawn from other goods, which were thus left, necessarily, underproduced:

"A nation may easily have more than enough of any one commodity, though she can never have more than enough of commodities in general.  The quantity of any one commodity may easily be carried beyond its due proportion, but by that very circumstance is implied that some other commodity is not provided in sufficient proportion.  What is indeed meant by a commodity's exceeding the market?  Is it not that there is a portion of it for which there is nothing that can be had in exchange.  But of those other things then the proportion is too small.  A part of the means of production which had been applied to the preparation of this superabundant commodity, should have been applied to the preparation of those other commodities till the balance between them has been established.  Whenever this balance is properly preserved, there can be no superfluity of commodities, none for which a market will not be ready." (Mill, 1807 [1808] p.84-5). 

A partisan of the "Banking School", James Mill also participated in the Bullionist Controversies of the time (e.g. Mill, 1808). 

It was around 1808 that Mill forged long-lasting friendships with two very influential men: David Ricardo and Jeremy Bentham.  Ricardo would provide him his economics, a continuation of his own, while Bentham would guide his political and social philosophy. Interestingly, the two influences seemed to never have met each other in the mind of James Mill.  With a few exceptions, it never occurred to him to bring the Benthamite concept of utility into his economics, nor even to bring the utilitarian "greatest happiness" principle to bear on the analysis of economic policy.  For all their close collaboration, Bentham never completely exorcised the Scottish liberal heritage in James Mill.    The influence was returned.  Mill has been greatly credited with pushing Ricardo to explore, articulate and publish his ideas, and with pushing Bentham in a democratic direction, embracing parliamentary reform, ballots and universal suffrage.

It is alleged (not least by Mill himself) that the Edinburgh Review stifled and edited out Mill's radical political arguments.  But in the series of supplements to Encyclopedia Britannica from 1816 to 1824, Mill found fewer restrictions and took the opportunity to articulate his political philosophy, culminating in his famous radical essay on Government (1820), the most complete defense on democracy on the basis of utilitarian philosophy, rather than any "natural law" considerations. Widespread democracy and civil rights were, Mill argued, the best way to ensure a good, stable and efficient government.  This essay was famously torn apart by Thomas Macaulay.  

Throughout this time, Mill's financial precariousness had not ceased.  Throughout the 1810s, he depended on the generosity of his friends, notably Jeremy Bentham and even his own young disciple and personal manager, Francis Place.   From 1814, despite a near-break with Bentham over a personal slight, Mill subleased a house on Queen's Square, London, from Bentham at a subsidized rent and lived with him on his country residences during the season.  But Mill (and his son, John Stuart Mill) found himself obliged to return the kindness by vigorous collaboration with their eccentric landlord, sorting through the Aegean stables of Bentham's manuscripts on legal and utilitarian topics, hammering them into presentable and publishable form. 

In 1817, Mill produced his massive History of India, which he had been working on the side for many years.  Its analysis was clearly inspired by the conjectural histories typical of the Scottish Enlightenment: India was deemed a nation just emerging out of its barbarian stage and saw the English role as a civilizing mission (although he would later famously claim that the British Empire was "a vast system of outdoor relief for the upper classes").  He defended the rule of the East India Company (rather than the English government). Mill recommended several reforms for India, perhaps the most interesting was his call for the elimination of taxes and the complete nationalization of land (EIC fiscal revenue would thus arise from rents -- which he believed were easier to collect and less distortionary).  The success of his History led him to be hired by the London office of the East India Company in 1819, which finally provided him with financial security for the remainder of his life.  

In the meantime, Mill was busy forging the Classical Ricardian School in economics. An energetic man, it was Mill who encouraged David Ricardo to publish his 1817 treatise on value and distribution and then pushed him to run for Parliament. In 1821, Mill helped found the Political Economy Club in London, which became a stomping ground for Ricardian economists and Benthamite radicals.  

After Ricardo's death, James Mill, Ramsey McCulloch and Thomas de Quincey became the high priests of  Ricardian economics.  James Mill's Elements of Political Economy, (1821) quickly became the leading textbook exposition of doctrinaire Ricardian economics.  As this was compiled from the lectures on political economy he had given to his young son, John Stuart Mill, there were was little that was novel in it -- except for the ill-fated "Wages Fund" doctrine: 

"Universally, then, we may affirm, other things remaining the same, that if the ratio which capital and population bear to one another remains the same, wages will remain the same; if the ratio which capital bears to population increases, wages will rise; if the ratio which population bears to capital increases, wages will fall." (J. Mill, 1821: p.44)

Mill continued advancing the utilitarian doctrines of Bentham and the "Philosophical Radicals" until the end.  Although, the Mill-Bentham relationship had its complicated and heated moments, nonetheless, Mill remained an uncritical admirer of Bentham's philosophy and its principal propagator.

It must also be noted that Mill, unlike Bentham, was a great advocate of government non-intervention in the economy, and thus very much a classical liberal.  Mill was a strict "welfarist", excluding social justice and any other such considerations from all utilitarian "greatest happiness" calculations.  Consequently, Mill argued that fiscal policy should be designed so as to leave  the status quo in place (e.g. proportional rather than progressive taxation).  It was Mill who was mostly responsible for forwarding the argument that since each individual acts in his own self-interest, then any  collection of people necessarily acts in the interest of the whole. 

Mill was also a great advocate of widespread education.  He believed, like Bentham, that people need to be educated so as to best be able to figure out what is their own best interest.  But he added that what is in their own self-interest is often quite complicated.  This includes consideration of the impact of their actions on other people, choosing the right government and pushing for the right policies.  Wage claims by trade unions or protection against foreign commerce, for instance, might seem to be in the self-interest of workers, but a truly educated workforce would realize that their long-run interests are best served otherwise.  His belief that people were myopic, in the sense that they underestimated their future utility, was one of the earliest articulations of the "time preference" idea.

In psychology, Mill is widely regarded as the father of "monism" or "association of ideas" in mental states.  Mill's 1829 Analysis originated as an attempt to decipher the psychological foundations of utilitarianism.   However, he ended up closer to the "moral sentiments" theories of  Adam Smith and the Scottish philosophers than to anything Bentham would have envisioned. 

Mill helped found the Westminster Review, the publishing organ of the Philosophical Radicals, in 1824.  He is also largely responsible for the foundation of University College and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (an working class adult education movement), which probably owes more to his earlier work on education reform than to Bentham.

After another personal quarrel with Bentham in 1828, Mill moved out of the Queen's Square and acquired a new home of his own in Kensington in 1830.  He continued working with the East India Company, famously defending the company before the Parliamentary Select Committee of 1831-32.   In the political field, he as a moving force behind the Reform Bill and served as an advisor to the chancellor, Lord Brougham before his death in 1836.

Mill's role in the history of both economics and philosophy is largely as a popularizer of existing theories, rather than as an original thinker.   To posterity, James Mill's greatest claim to fame was undoubtedly his legendary role as the father of John Stuart Mill.   As it turns out, this may perhaps have been his most important contribution to the development of economics, politics and philosophy in the 19th Century.

Top

Top

Top

All rights reserved, Gonçalo L. Fonseca