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Sunday, August 10, 2014

John Stuart Mill


John Stuart Mill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill by London Stereoscopic Company, c1870.jpg
Born(1806-05-20)20 May 1806
Pentonville, London, England
Died8 May 1873(1873-05-08) (aged 66)
Avignon, France
ResidenceUnited Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Era19th-century philosophy,
Classical economics
RegionWestern Philosophy
SchoolEmpiricism, utilitarianism, liberalism
Main interestsPolitical philosophy, ethics, economics, inductive logic
Notable ideasPublic/private sphere, hierarchy of pleasures in Utilitarianism, liberalism, early liberal feminism, harm principle, Mill's Methods
Influences
Influenced
SignatureJohn Stuart Mill signature.svg

John Stuart Mill, (20 May 1806 – 8 May 1873) was a British philosopher, political economist and civil servant. He was an influential contributor to social theory, political theory and political economy. He has been called "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century".[3] Mill's conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.[4]

Mill expresses his view on freedom by illustrating how an individual's amelioration of personal quality and self-improvement is the sole source of true freedom. That only when an individual is able to attain such a beneficial standard of one's self, whilst in the absence of rendering external onerosity upon others, in their own journey to procure a higher calibre of self-worth, that true freedom resides. Mill's attitude toward freedom and individual accomplishment through self-improvement has inspired many. By establishing an appreciable level of worthiness concerned with one's ability to fulfill personal standards of notability and merit, Mill was able to provide many with a principal example of how they should achieve such particular values.

He was a proponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham. He worked on the theory of the scientific method.[5] Mill was also a Member of Parliament and an important figure in liberal political philosophy.

Biography

John Stuart Mill was born on Rodney Street in the Pentonville area of London, the eldest son of the Scottish philosopher, historian and economist James Mill, and Harriet Burrow. John Stuart was educated by his father, with the advice and assistance of Jeremy Bentham and Francis Place. He was given an extremely rigorous upbringing, and was deliberately shielded from association with children his own age other than his siblings. His father, a follower of Bentham and an adherent of associationism, had as his explicit aim to create a genius intellect that would carry on the cause of utilitarianism and its implementation after he and Bentham had died.[6]

Mill was a notably precocious child. He describes his education in his autobiography. At the age of three he was taught Greek.[7] By the age of eight, he had read Aesop's Fables, Xenophon's Anabasis,[7] and the whole of Herodotus,[7] and was acquainted with Lucian, Diogenes Laërtius, Isocrates and six dialogues of Plato.[7] He had also read a great deal of history in English and had been taught arithmetic, physics and astronomy.

At the age of eight, Mill began studying Latin, the works of Euclid, and algebra, and was appointed schoolmaster to the younger children of the family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the commonly taught Latin and Greek authors and by the age of ten could read Plato and Demosthenes with ease. His father also thought that it was important for Mill to study and compose poetry. One of Mill's earliest poetry compositions was a continuation of the Iliad. In his spare time, he also enjoyed reading about natural sciences and popular novels, such as Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe.

His father's work, The History of British India was published in 1818; immediately thereafter, about the age of twelve, Mill began a thorough study of the scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle's logical treatises in the original language. In the following year he was introduced to political economy and studied Adam Smith and David Ricardo with his father, ultimately completing their classical economic view of factors of production. Mill's comptes rendus of his daily economy lessons helped his father in writing Elements of Political Economy in 1821, a textbook to promote the ideas of Ricardian economics; however, the book lacked popular support.[8] Ricardo, who was a close friend of his father, used to invite the young Mill to his house for a walk in order to talk about political economy.

At the age of fourteen, Mill stayed a year in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham, brother of Jeremy Bentham. The mountain scenery he saw led to a lifelong taste for mountain landscapes. The lively and friendly way of life of the French also left a deep impression on him. In Montpellier, he attended the winter courses on chemistry, zoology, logic of the Faculté des Sciences, as well as taking a course of the higher mathematics. While coming and going from France, he stayed in Paris for a few days in the house of the renowned economist Jean-Baptiste Say, a friend of Mill's father. There he met many leaders of the Liberal party, as well as other notable Parisians, including Henri Saint-Simon.

This intensive study however had injurious effects on Mill's mental health, and state of mind. At the age of twenty[9] he suffered a nervous breakdown. In chapter V of his Autobiography, he claims that this was caused by the great physical and mental arduousness of his studies which had suppressed any feelings he might have developed normally in childhood. Nevertheless, this depression eventually began to dissipate, as he began to find solace in the Mémoires of Jean-François Marmontel and the poetry of William Wordsworth.[10]

Mill had been engaged in a pen-friendship with Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism and sociology, since Mill first contacted Comte in November 1841. Comte's sociologie was more an early philosophy of science than we perhaps know it today, and the positive philosophy aided in Mill's broad rejection of Benthamism.[11]

As a nonconformist who refused to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, Mill was not eligible to study at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge.[12] Instead he followed his father to work for the East India Company until 1858, and attended University College, London, to hear the lectures of John Austin, the first Professor of Jurisprudence.[13] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1856.[14]

In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor after 21 years of an intimate friendship. Taylor was married when they met, and their relationship was close but generally believed to be chaste during the years before her first husband died. Brilliant in her own right, Taylor was a significant influence on Mill's work and ideas during both friendship and marriage. His relationship with Harriet Taylor reinforced Mill's advocacy of women's rights. He cites her influence in his final revision of On Liberty, which was published shortly after her death. Taylor died in 1858 after developing severe lung congestion, after only seven years of marriage to Mill.

Between the years 1865 and 1868 Mill served as Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews. During the same period, 1865–68, he was a Member of Parliament for City and Westminster,[15] and was often associated with the Liberal Party. During his time as an MP, Mill advocated easing the burdens on Ireland. In 1866, Mill became the first person in the history of Parliament to call for women to be given the right to vote, vigorously defending this position in subsequent debate. Mill became a strong advocate of such social reforms as labour unions and farm cooperatives. In Considerations on Representative Government, Mill called for various reforms of Parliament and voting, especially proportional representation, the Single Transferable Vote, and the extension of suffrage.

He was godfather to the philosopher Bertrand Russell.

In his views on religion, Mill was an atheist.[16][17]

Mill died in 1873 of erysipelas in Avignon, France, where he was buried alongside his wife.

Works

Theory of liberty

Mill's On Liberty addresses the nature and limits of the power that can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. However Mill is clear that his concern for liberty does not extend to all individuals and all societies. He states that "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians".[18]

Mill states that it is acceptable to harm oneself as long the person doing so is not harming others. He also argues that individuals should be prevented from doing lasting, serious harm to themselves or their property by the harm principle. Because no one exists in isolation, harm done to oneself may also harm others, and destroying property deprives the community as well as oneself.[19] Mill excuses those who are "incapable of self-government" from this principle, such as young children or those living in "backward states of society".

Though this principle seems clear, there are a number of complications. For example, Mill explicitly states that "harms" may include acts of omission as well as acts of commission. Thus, failing to rescue a drowning child counts as a harmful act, as does failing to pay taxes, or failing to appear as a witness in court. All such harmful omissions may be regulated, according to Mill. By contrast, it does not count as harming someone if – without force or fraud – the affected individual consents to assume the risk: thus one may permissibly offer unsafe employment to others, provided there is no deception involved. (Mill does, however, recognise one limit to consent: society should not permit people to sell themselves into slavery). In these and other cases, it is important to keep in mind that the arguments in On Liberty are grounded on the principle of Utility, and not on appeals to natural rights.

The question of what counts as a self-regarding action and what actions, whether of omission or commission, constitute harmful actions subject to regulation, continues to exercise interpreters of Mill. It is important to emphasise that Mill did not consider giving offence to constitute "harm"; an action could not be restricted because it violated the conventions or morals of a given society.
On Liberty involves an impassioned defence of free speech. Mill argues that free discourse is a necessary condition for intellectual and social progress. We can never be sure, he contends, that a silenced opinion does not contain some element of the truth. He also argues that allowing people to air false opinions is productive for two reasons. First, individuals are more likely to abandon erroneous beliefs if they are engaged in an open exchange of ideas. Second, by forcing other individuals to re-examine and re-affirm their beliefs in the process of debate, these beliefs are kept from declining into mere dogma. It is not enough for Mill that one simply has an unexamined belief that happens to be true; one must understand why the belief in question is the true one. Along those same lines Mill wrote, "unmeasured vituperation, employed on the side of prevailing opinion, really does deter people from expressing contrary opinions, and from listening to those who express them."[20]
John Stuart Mill and Helen Taylor. Helen was the daughter of Harriet Taylor and collaborated with Mill for fifteen years after her mother's death in 1858.

Social liberty and tyranny of majority

Mill believed that "the struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history." For him, liberty in antiquity was a "contest... between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government." Mill defined "social liberty" as protection from "the tyranny of political rulers." He introduced a number of different concepts of the form tyranny can take, referred to as social tyranny, and tyranny of the majority respectively.

Social liberty for Mill meant putting limits on the ruler's power so that he would not be able to use his power on his own wishes and make decisions which could harm society; in other words, people should have the right to have a say in the government's decisions. He said that social liberty was "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual". It was attempted in two ways: first, by obtaining recognition of certain immunities, called political liberties or rights; second, by establishment of a system of "constitutional checks".
However, in Mill's view, limiting the power of government was not enough. He stated, "Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."[21]

Liberty

John Stuart Mill's view on liberty, which was influenced by Joseph Priestley and Josiah Warren, is that the individual ought to be free to do as he wishes unless he harms others. Individuals are rational enough to make decisions about their well being. Government should interfere when it is for the protection of society. Mill explained:
The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. 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. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns him, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.[22]
Mill added: "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians, provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end. Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion."[23]

Freedom of speech

An influential advocate of freedom of speech, Mill objected to censorship. He says:
I choose, by preference the cases which are least favourable to me – In which the argument opposing freedom of opinion, both on truth and that of utility, is considered the strongest. Let the opinions impugned be the belief of God and in a future state, or any of the commonly received doctrines of morality... But I must be permitted to observe that it is not the feeling sure of a doctrine (be it what it may) which I call an assumption of infallibility. It is the undertaking to decide that question for others, without allowing them to hear what can be said on the contrary side. And I denounce and reprobate this pretension not the less if it is put forth on the side of my most solemn convictions. However, positive anyone's persuasion may be, not only of the faculty but of the pernicious consequences, but (to adopt expressions which I altogether condemn) the immorality and impiety of opinion. – yet if, in pursuance of that private judgement, though backed by the public judgement of his country or contemporaries, he prevents the opinion from being heard in its defence, he assumes infallibility. And so far from the assumption being less objectionable or less dangerous because the opinion is called immoral or impious, this is the case of all others in which it is most fatal.[24]
Mill outlines the benefits of 'searching for and discovering the truth' as a way to further knowledge. He argued that even if an opinion is false, the truth can be better understood by refuting the error. And as most opinions are neither completely true nor completely false, he points out that allowing free expression allows the airing of competing views as a way to preserve partial truth in various opinions.[25] Worried about minority views being suppressed, Mill also argued in support of freedom of speech on political grounds, stating that it is a critical component for a representative government to have in order to empower debate over public policy.[25] Mill also eloquently argued that freedom of expression allows for personal growth and self-realization. He said that freedom of speech was a vital way to develop talents and realise a person's potential and creativity. He repeatedly said that eccentricity was preferable to uniformity and stagnation.[25]

Colonialism

Mill, an employee for the British East India Company from 1823 to 1858,[26] argued in support of what he called a 'benevolent despotism' with regard to the colonies.[27] Mill argued that "To suppose that the same international customs, and the same rules of international morality, can obtain between one civilized nation and another, and between civilized nations and barbarians, is a grave error....To characterize any conduct whatever towards a barbarous people as a violation of the law of nations, only shows that he who so speaks has never considered the subject."[28] He also wrote that "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians".[29]

Slavery

Domenico Losurdo argues that "In Mill's view, 'any means were licit for those who took on the task of educating 'savage tribes'; 'slavery' was sometimes a mandatory stage for inducing them to work and making them useful to civilization and progress."[30]

In 1850, Mill sent an anonymous letter (which came to be known under the title "The Negro Question"),[31] in rebuttal to Thomas Carlyle's anonymous letter to Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country which argued for slavery. Mill supported abolition in the United States.

Women's rights

"A Feminine Philosopher". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1873.

Mill saw women's issues as important and began to write in favour of greater rights for women. With this, Mill can be considered among the earliest women's rights advocates. His book The Subjection of Women (1861, published 1869) is one of the earliest written on this subject by a male author.[citation needed] In "The Subjection of Women" Mill attempts to prove that the legal subjugation of women is wrong and that it should give way to perfect equality.[32] He talks about the role of women in marriage and how he felt it needed to be changed. There, Mill comments on three major facets of women's lives that he felt are hindering them: society and gender construction, education, and marriage. He felt that the oppression of women was one of the few remaining relics from ancient times, a set of prejudices that severely impeded the progress of humanity.[33]

Mill's ideas were opposed by Ernest Belfort Bax in his treatise, The Legal Subjection of Men.[34]

Utilitarianism

The canonical statement of Mill's utilitarianism can be found in Utilitarianism. This philosophy has a long tradition, although Mill's account is primarily influenced by Jeremy Bentham and Mill's father James Mill.

Jeremy Bentham's famous formulation of utilitarianism is known as the "greatest-happiness principle". It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason. Mill's major contribution to utilitarianism is his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures. Bentham treats all forms of happiness as equal, whereas Mill argues that intellectual and moral pleasures (higher pleasures) are superior to more physical forms of pleasure (lower pleasures). Mill distinguishes between happiness and contentment, claiming that the former is of higher value than the latter, a belief wittily encapsulated in the statement that "it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question."[35]

Mill defines the difference between higher and lower forms of happiness with the principle that those who have experienced both tend to prefer one over the other. This is, perhaps, in direct contrast with Bentham's statement that "Quantity of pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry",[36] that, if a simple child's game like hopscotch causes more pleasure to more people than a night at the opera house, it is more imperative upon a society to devote more resources to propagating hopscotch than running opera houses. Mill's argument is that the "simple pleasures" tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art, and are therefore not in a proper position to judge. Mill also argues that people who, for example, are noble or practice philosophy, benefit society more than those who engage in individualist practices for pleasure, which are lower forms of happiness. It is not the agent's own greatest happiness that matters "but the greatest amount of happiness altogether".[37]
Mill supported legislation that would have granted extra voting power to university graduates on the grounds that they were in a better position to judge what would be best for society. (For he believed that education itself, not the intrinsic nature of educated people, qualified them to have more influence in government.)

The qualitative account of happiness that Mill advocates thus sheds light on his account presented in On Liberty. As Mill suggests in that text, utility is to be conceived in relation to humanity "as a progressive being", which includes the development and exercise of rational capacities as we strive to achieve a "higher mode of existence". The rejection of censorship and paternalism is intended to provide the necessary social conditions for the achievement of knowledge and the greatest ability for the greatest number to develop and exercise their deliberative and rational capacities.

Economic philosophy

Mill's early economic philosophy was one of free markets. However, he accepted interventions in the economy, such as a tax on alcohol, if there were sufficient utilitarian grounds. He also accepted the principle of legislative intervention for the purpose of animal welfare.[38] Mill originally believed that "equality of taxation" meant "equality of sacrifice" and that progressive taxation penalised those who worked harder and saved more and was therefore "a mild form of robbery".[39]

Given an equal tax rate regardless of income, Mill agreed that inheritance should be taxed. A utilitarian society would agree that everyone should be equal one way or another. Therefore receiving inheritance would put one ahead of society unless taxed on the inheritance. Those who donate should consider and choose carefully where their money goes—some charities are more deserving than others. Considering public charities boards such as a government will disburse the money equally.
However, a private charity board like a church would disburse the monies fairly to those who are in more need than others.[40]

Later he altered his views toward a more socialist bent, adding chapters to his Principles of Political Economy in defence of a socialist outlook, and defending some socialist causes.[41] Within this revised work he also made the radical proposal that the whole wage system be abolished in favour of a co-operative wage system. Nonetheless, some of his views on the idea of flat taxation remained,[42] albeit altered in the third edition of the Principles of Political Economy to reflect a concern for differentiating restrictions on "unearned" incomes, which he favoured, and those on "earned" incomes, which he did not favour.[43]

Mill's Principles, first published in 1848, was one of the most widely read of all books on economics in the period.[44] As Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations had during an earlier period, Mill's Principles dominated economics teaching. In the case of Oxford University it was the standard text until 1919, when it was replaced by Marshall's Principles of Economics.

Economic democracy

Mill promoted economic democracy instead of capitalism, in the manner of substituting capitalist businesses with worker cooperatives. He says:
The form of association, however, which if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work-people without a voice in the management, but the association of the labourers themselves on terms of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.[45]

Political democracy

Mill's major work on political democracy, Considerations on Representative Government, defends two fundamental principles, extensive participation by citizens and enlightened competence of rulers.[46] The two values are obviously in tension, and some readers have concluded that he is an elitist democrat,[47] while others count him as an earlier participatory democrat.[48] In one section he appears to defend plural voting, in which more competent citizens are given extra votes (a view he later repudiated). But in chapter 3 he presents what is still one of the most eloquent cases for the value of participation by all citizens. He believed that the incompetence of the masses could eventually be overcome if they were given a chance to take part in politics, especially at the local level.

Mill is one of the few political philosophers ever to serve in government as an elected official. In his three years in Parliament, he was more willing to compromise than the "radical" principles expressed in his writing would lead one to expect.[49]

The environment

Mill demonstrated an early insight into the value of the natural world – in particular in Book IV, chapter VI of "Principles of Political Economy": "Of the Stationary State"[50][51] in which Mill recognised wealth beyond the material, and argued that the logical conclusion of unlimited growth was destruction of the environment and a reduced quality of life. He concluded that a stationary state could be preferable to unending economic growth:
I cannot, therefore, regard the stationary state of capital and wealth with the unaffected aversion so generally manifested towards it by political economists of the old school.
If the earth must lose that great portion of its pleasantness which it owes to things that the unlimited increase of wealth and population would extirpate from it, for the mere purpose of enabling it to support a larger, but not a better or a happier population, I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compel them to it.

Economic development

Mill regarded economic development as a function of land, labour and capital. While land and labour are the two original factors of production, capital is "a stock, previously accumulated of the products of former labour." Increase in wealth is possible only if land and capital help to increase production faster than the labour force. It is productive labour that is productive of wealth and capital accumulation. "The rate of capital accumulation is the function of the proportion of the labour force employed ' productively. Profits earned by employing unproductive labours are merely transfers of income; unproductive labour does not generate wealth or income" . It is productive labourers who do productive consumption. Productive consumption is that "which maintains and increase the productive capacity of the community." It implies that productive consumption is an input necessary to maintain productive labourers.[52]

Control of population growth

Mill supported the Malthusian theory of population. By population he meant the number of the working class only. He was therefore concerned about the growth in number of labourers who worked for hire. He believed that population control was essential for improving the condition of the working class so that they might enjoy the fruits of the technological progress and capital accumulation. Mill advocated birth control. In 1823 Mill and a friend were arrested while distributing pamphlets on birth control by Francis Place to women in working class areas.[53]

Wage fund

According to Mill, supply is very elastic in response to wages. Wages generally exceed the minimum subsistence level, and are paid out of capital. Hence, wages are limited by existing capital for paying wages. Thus, wage per worker can be derived by dividing the total circulating capital by the size of the working population. Wages can increase by an increase in the capital used in paying wages, or by decrease in the number of workers. If wages rise, supply of labour will rise. Competition among workers not only brings down wages, but also keeps some workers out of employment. This is based on Mill's notion that "demand for commodities is not demand for labourers". It means that income invested as advances of wages to labour creates employment, and not income spent on consumer goods. An increase in consumption causes a decline in investment. So increased investment leads to increases in the wage fund and to economic progress.

Rate of capital accumulation

According to Mill, the rate of capital accumulation depends on: (1) "the amount of fund from which saving can be made" or "the size of the net produce of the industry", and (2) the " disposition to save". Capital is the result of savings, and the savings come from the "abstinence from present consumption for the sake of future goods". Although capital is the result of saving, it is nevertheless consumed. This means saving is spending. Since saving depends on the net produce of the industry, it grows with profits and rent which go into making the net produce. On the other hand, the disposition to save depends on (1) the rate of profit and (2) the desire to save, or what Mill called "effective desire of accumulation". However, profit also depends on the cost of labour, and the rate of profit is the ratio of profits to wages. When profits rise or wages fall, the rate of profits increases, which in turn increases the rate of capital accumulation. Similarly, it is the desire to save which tends to increase the rate of capital accumulation.

Rate of profit

According to Mill, the ultimate tendency in an economy is for the rate of profit to decline due to diminishing returns in agriculture and increase in population at a Malthusian rate.[citation needed]

Major publications

TitleDateSource
"Two Letters on the Measure of Value"1822"The Traveller"
"Questions of Population"1823"Black Dwarf"
"War Expenditure"1824Westminster Review
"Quarterly Review – Political Economy"1825Westminster Review
"Review of Miss Martineau's Tales"1830Examiner
"The Spirit of the Age"1831Examiner
"Use and Abuse of Political Terms"1832
"What is Poetry"1833, 1859
"Rationale of Representation"1835
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [i]"1835
"State of Society In America"1836
"Civilization"1836
"Essay on Bentham"1838
"Essay on Coleridge"1840
"Essays On Government"1840
"De Tocqueville on Democracy in America [ii]"1840
A System of Logic1843
Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy1844
"Claims of Labour"1845Edinburgh Review
The Principles of Political Economy: with some of their applications to social philosophy1848
"The Negro Question"1850Fraser's Magazine
"Reform of the Civil Service"1854
Dissertations and Discussions1859
A Few Words on Non-intervention1859
On Liberty1859
'Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform1859
Considerations on Representative Government1861
"Centralisation"1862Edinburgh Review
"The Contest in America"1862Harper's Magazine
Utilitarianism1863
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy1865
Auguste Comte and Positivism1865
Inaugural Address at St. AndrewsRectorial Inaugural Address at the University of St. Andrews, concerning the value of culture1867
"Speech In Favor of Capital Punishment"[54][55]1868
England and Ireland1868
"Thornton on Labor and its Claims"1869Fortnightly Review
The Subjection of Women1869
Chapters and Speeches on the Irish Land Question1870
On Nature1874
Autobiography of John Stuart Mill1873
Three Essays on Religion1874
On Social Freedom: or the Necessary Limits of Individual Freedom Arising Out of the Conditions of Our Social Life1907"Oxford and Cambridge Review"
"Notes on N.W. Senior's Political Economy"1945Economica

Thomas Robert Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Thomas Robert Malthus
Thomas Robert Malthus.jpg
Thomas Robert Malthus
Born(1766-02-14)14 February 1766
Surrey, England
Died29 December 1834(1834-12-29) (aged 68)
Bath, England
FieldDemography, macroeconomics
School/traditionClassical economics
InfluencesDavid Ricardo, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
InfluencedCharles Darwin, Paul R. Ehrlich, Francis Place, Raynold Kaufgetz, Garrett Hardin, John Maynard Keynes, Pierre François Verhulst, Alfred Russel Wallace, William Thompson, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong
ContributionsMalthusian growth model

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834[1]) was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography.[2] Malthus himself used only his middle name Robert.[3]

Malthus became widely known for his theories about change in population. His An Essay on the Principle of Population observed that sooner or later population will be checked by famine and disease, leading to what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.[4] He thought that the dangers of population growth precluded progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".[5] As a cleric, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour.[6] Malthus wrote:
That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.[7]
Malthus placed the longer-term stability of the economy above short-term expediency. He criticized the Poor Laws,[8] and (alone among important contemporary economists) supported the Corn Laws, which introduced a system of taxes on British imports of wheat.[9] His views became influential, and controversial, across economic, political, social and scientific thought. Pioneers of evolutionary biology read him, notably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.[10][11] He remains a much-debated writer.

Early life and education

The seventh child of Daniel and Henrietta Malthus,[12] Robert Malthus grew up in The Rookery, a country house in Westcott, near Dorking in Surrey. Petersen describes Daniel Malthus as "a gentleman of good family and independent means... [and] a friend of David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau".[13] The young Malthus received his education at home in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, and then at the Warrington Academy from 1782. Warrington was a dissenting academy, then at the end of its existence. and it closed in 1783. Malthus continued for a period to be tutored by Gilbert Wakefield who had taught him there.[14]

Malthus entered Jesus College, Cambridge in 1784. There he took prizes in English declamation, Latin and Greek, and graduated with honours, Ninth Wrangler in mathematics. His tutor was William Frend.[14][15] He took the MA degree in 1791, and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College two years later.[3] In 1789, he took orders in the Church of England, and became a curate at Oakwood Chapel (also Okewood) in the parish of Wotton, Surrey.[16]

Population growth

Malthus came to prominence for his 1798 essay on population growth. In it he argued that population multiplies geometrically and food arithmetically; therefore, the population will eventually outstrip the food supply. Between 1798 and 1826 he published six editions of An Essay on the Principle of Population, updating each edition to incorporate new material, to address criticism, and to convey changes in his own perspectives on the subject. He wrote the original text in reaction to the optimism of his father and his father's associates (notably Rousseau) regarding the future improvement of society. Malthus also constructed his case as a specific response to writings of William Godwin (1756–1836) and of the Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794).

The Essay gave rise to the Malthusian controversy during the next decades. The content saw an emphasis on the birth rate and marriage rates. The neo-Malthusian controversy, or related debates of many years later, has seen a similar central role assigned to the numbers of children born.[17]

In 1799 Malthus made a European tour with William Otter, a close college friend, travelling part of the way with Edward Daniel Clarke and John Marten Cripps, visiting Germany, Scandinavia and Russia. Malthus used the trip to gather population data. Otter later wrote a Memoir of Malthus for the second (1836) edition of his Principles of Political Economy.[18][19] During the Peace of Amiens of 1802 he travelled to France and Switzerland, in a party that included his relation and future wife Harriet.[20] In 1803 he became rector of Walesby, Lincolnshire.[3]

Academic

In 1805 Malthus became Professor of History and Political Economy at the East India Company College in Hertfordshire.[21] His students affectionately referred to him as "Pop" or "Population" Malthus.

At the end of 1816 the proposed appointment of Graves Champney Haughton to the College was made a pretext by Randle Jackson and Joseph Hume to launch an attempt to close it down. Malthus wrote a pamphlet defending the College, which was reprieved by the East India Company in 1817.[22] In 1818 Malthus became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Malthus–Ricardo debate on political economy

During the 1820s there took place a setpiece intellectual discussion within the proponents of political economy, often called the "Malthus–Ricardo debate", after the leading figures of Malthus and David Ricardo, a theorist of free trade, both of whom had written books with the title Principles of Political Economy. Under examination were the nature and methods of political economy itself, while it was simultaneously under attack from others.[23] The roots of the debate were in the previous decade. In
The Nature of Rent (1815), Malthus had dealt with economic rent, a major concept in classical economics. Ricardo defined a theory of rent in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817): he regarded rent as value in excess of real production—something caused by ownership rather than by free trade. Rent therefore represented a kind of negative money that landlords could pull out of the production of the land, by means of its scarcity.[24] Contrary to this concept, Malthus proposed rent to be a kind of economic surplus.

The debate developed over the economic concept of a general glut, and the possibility of failure of Say's Law. Malthus laid importance on economic development and the persistence of disequilibrium.[25] The context was the post-war depression; Malthus had a supporter in William Blake, in denying that capital accumulation (saving) was always good in such circumstances, and John Stuart Mill attacked Blake on the fringes of the debate.[26]

Ricardo corresponded with Malthus from 1817 and his Principles. He was drawn into considering political economy in a less restricted sense, which might be adapted to legislation and its multiple objectives, by the thought of Malthus. In his own work Principles of Political Economy (1820), and elsewhere, Malthus addressed the tension, amounting to conflict, he saw between a narrow view of political economy, and the broader moral and political plane.[27] Leslie Stephen wrote:
If Malthus and Ricardo differed, it was a difference of men who accepted the same first principles. They both professed to interpret Adam Smith as the true prophet, and represented different shades of opinion rather than diverging sects.[28]
It is now considered that the different purposes seen by Malthus and Ricardo for political economy affected their technical discussion, and contributed to the lack of compatible definitions.[25] For example, Jean-Baptiste Say used a definition of production based on goods and services and so queried the restriction of Malthus to "goods" alone.[29]

In terms of public policy, Malthus was a supporter of the protectionist Corn Laws from the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He emerged as the only economist of note to support duties on imported grain.[30]
He changed his mind after 1814. By encouraging domestic production, Malthus argued, the Corn Laws would guarantee British self-sufficiency in food.[31] He also wished to abolish poor relief for paupers, a lifelong aim.[32]

Later life

Malthus was a founding member of the Political Economy Club in 1821; there John Cazenove tended to be his ally, against Ricardo and Mill.[33] He was elected in the beginning of 1824 as one of the ten royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature. He was also one of the first fellows of the Statistical Society, founded in March 1834. In 1827 he gave evidence to a committee of the House of Commons on emigration.[34]

After Ricardo's death in 1823, Malthus became isolated among the younger British political economists, who tended to think he had lost the debate. In Definitions in Political Economy (1827) he attacked John Ramsay McCulloch. McCulloch replied cuttingly, implying that he wanted to dictate to others, and the reputation of Malthus as economist dropped away, for the rest of his life.[35]
Malthus died suddenly of heart disease on 23 December 1834, at his father-in-law's house. He was buried in Bath Abbey.[34] His portrait,[36] and descriptions by contemporaries, present him as tall and good-looking, but with a cleft lip and palate.[37] The cleft palate affected his speech: such birth defects had occurred before amongst his relatives.[38]

Family

On 13 March 1804 Malthus married Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, St. Catherine's, near Bath, Somerset. They had a son and a daughter. The son, Henry, became vicar of Effingham, Surrey, in 1835, and of Donnington, West Sussex, in 1837. He died in August 1882, aged 76.[34]

An Essay on the Principle of Population

Malthus argued in his Essay (1798) that population growth generally expanded in times and in regions of plenty until the size of the population relative to the primary resources caused distress:
"Yet in all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition".
—Malthus T.R. 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter II, p 18 in Oxford World's Classics reprint.
Malthus argued that two types of checks hold population within resource limits: positive checks, which raise the death rate; and preventive ones, which lower the birth rate. The positive checks include hunger, disease and war; the preventive checks, abortion, birth control, prostitution, postponement of marriage and celibacy.[39] In later editions of his essay, Malthus clarified his view that if society relied on human misery to limit population growth, then sources of misery (e.g., hunger, disease, and war) would inevitably afflict society, as would volatile economic cycles. On the other hand, "preventive checks" to population that limited birthrates, such as later marriages, could ensure a higher standard of living for all, while also increasing economic stability.[40] Regarding possibilities for freeing man from these limits, Malthus argued against a variety of imaginable solutions, such as the notion that agricultural improvements could expand without limit.

Of the relationship between population and economics, Malthus wrote that when the population of laborers grows faster than the production of food, real wages fall because the growing population causes the cost of living (i.e., the cost of food) to go up. Difficulties of raising a family eventually reduce the rate of population growth, until the falling population again leads to higher real wages.
In the second and subsequent editions Malthus put more emphasis on moral restraint as the best means of easing the poverty of the lower classes."[41]

Editions and versions

  • 1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the future improvement of society with remarks on the speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and other writers.. Anonymously published.
  • 1803: Second and much enlarged edition: An Essay on the Principle of Population; or, a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an enquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions. Authorship acknowledged.
  • 1806, 1807, 1817 and 1826: editions 3–6, with relatively minor changes from the second edition.
  • 1823: Malthus contributed the article on Population to the supplement of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
  • 1830: Malthus had a long extract from the 1823 article reprinted as A summary view of the Principle of Population.[42]

Other works

1800: The present high price of provisions

In this work, his first published pamphlet, Malthus argues against the notion prevailing in his locale that the greed of intermediaries caused the high price of provisions. Instead, Malthus says that the high price stems from the Poor Laws which "increase the parish allowances in proportion to the price of corn". Thus, given a limited supply, the Poor Laws force up the price of daily necessities. But he concludes by saying that in time of scarcity such Poor Laws, by raising the price of corn more evenly, actually produce a beneficial effect.[43]

1814: Observations on the effects of the Corn Laws

Although government in Britain had regulated the prices of grain, the Corn Laws originated in 1815. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars that year, Parliament passed legislation banning the importation of foreign corn into Britain until domestic corn cost 80 shillings per quarter. The high price caused the cost of food to increase and caused distress among the working classes in the towns. It led to serious rioting in London and to the "Peterloo Massacre" (1819) in Manchester.[44][45]

In this pamphlet, printed during the parliamentary discussion, Malthus tentatively supported the free-traders. He argued that given the increasing expense of raising British corn, advantages accrued from supplementing it from cheaper foreign sources. This view he changed the following year.

1820: Principles of political economy

1836: Second edition, posthumously published.

Malthus intended this work to rival Ricardo's Principles (1817).[46] It, and his 1827 Definitions in political economy, defended Sismondi's views on "general glut" rather than Say's Law, which in effect states "there can be no general glut".

Other publications

  • 1807. A letter to Samuel Whitbread, Esq. M.P. on his proposed Bill for the Amendment of the Poor Laws. Johnson and Hatchard, London.
  • 1808. Spence on Commerce. Edinburgh Review 11, January, 429–448.
  • 1808. Newneham and others on the state of Ireland. Edinburgh Review 12, July, 336–355.
  • 1809. Newneham on the state of Ireland, Edinburgh Review 14 April, 151–170.
  • 1811. Depreciation of paper currency. Edinburgh Review 17, February, 340–372.
  • 1812. Pamphlets on the bullion question. Edinburgh Review 18, August, 448–470.
  • 1813. A letter to the Rt. Hon. Lord Grenville. Johnson, London.
  • 1817. Statement respecting the East-India College. Murray, London.
  • 1821. Godwin on Malthus. Edinburgh Review 35, July, 362–377.
  • 1823. The Measure of Value, stated and illustrated
  • 1823. Tooke – On high and low prices. Quarterly Review, 29 (57), April, 214–239.
  • 1824. Political economy. Quarterly Review 30 (60), January, 297–334.
  • 1829. On the measure of the conditions necessary to the supply of commodities. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom. 1, 171–180. John Murray, London.
  • 1829. On the meaning which is most usually and most correctly attached to the term Value of a Commodity. Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom. 2, 74–81. John Murray.

Reception and influence

Malthus developed the theory of demand-supply mismatches that he called gluts. Discounted at the time, this theory foreshadowed later works of an admirer, John Maynard Keynes.[47]
The vast bulk of continuing commentary on Malthus, however, extends and expands on the "Malthusian controversy" of the early 19th century.

References in popular culture

  • Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, represents the perceived ideas of Malthus,[48] famously illustrated by his explanation as to why he refuses to donate to the poor and destitute: "If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population". In general, Dickens had some Malthusian concerns (evident in Hard Times and other novels), and he concentrated his attacks on Utilitarianism and many of its proponents, like Smith, and Bentham, whom he thought of, along with Malthus, as unjust and inhumane people.[49]
  • In Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World, people generally regard fertility as a nuisance, as in vitro breeding has enabled the society to maintain its population at precisely the level the controllers want. The women, therefore, carry contraceptives with them at all times in a "Malthusian belt".
  • In the popular television show Wiseguy, Kevin Spacey played Mel Proffitt, a self-professed "Malthusian" who quotes Thomas Malthus and keeps a bust of his likeness on display.
  • Officer Lockstock in the off-Broadway musical, "Urinetown", a show in which the world's water resources have become sparse, cries, "Hail Malthus!", at the end of the show in reference to Malthus' theories regarding natural resource scarcity.
  • The Professor on Sliders references Malthus in season 1 episode 10 "Luck of the Draw". The Sliders arrive in a Utopian world that has been implementing a lottery to keep the population low.
  • Chapter 33 in Dan Brown's novel Inferno mentions 'The mathematics of Malthus'.
  • The video game Hydrophobia tells about some eco-terrorists who name themselves "Malthusians" because their ideology is based on Malthus' theories.

Epitaph

The epitaph of Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus, just inside the entrance to Bath Abbey.

The epitaph of Malthus in Bath Abbey reads:
Sacred to the memory of the Rev Thomas Robert Malthus, long known to the lettered world by his admirable writings on the social branches of political economy, particularly by his essay on population. 
One of the best men and truest philosophers of any age or country, raised by native dignity of mind above the misrepresentation of the ignorant and the neglect of the great, he lived a serene and happy life devoted to the pursuit and communication of truth. 
Supported by a calm but firm conviction of the usefulness of his labours.
Content with the approbation of the wise and good. 
His writings will be a lasting monument of the extent and correctness of his understanding. 
The spotless integrity of his principles, the equity and candour of his nature, his sweetness of temper, urbanity of manners and tenderness of heart, his benevolence and his piety are still dearer recollections of his family and friends. 
Born February 14, 1766 Died 29 December 1834.

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