Book Description
Reflecting his utilitarian social philosophy, Mill suggests that social improvements are always possible. He thus proposes modifying a purely laissez-faire system, advocating trade protectionism and regulation of employees' work hours for the benefit of domestic industries and workers' well-being. In such features he displays a leaning toward socialism.
For anyone with an interest in the history of economics or the history of ideas, Mill's landmark work still makes for stimulating reading.
About the author
Mill's education broadened considerably after 1823 when he entered the East India Company to commence his life's career as his father had done before him. He traveled, became politically involved, and in so doing moved away from the narrower sectarian attitudes in which he had been raised. His ideas and imagination were ignited by the Coleridge, Comte, and de Tocqueville. During his life, Mill wrote many influential works: A SYSTEM OF LOGIC (1843); PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY (1848); ON LIBERTY (1859); UTILITARIANISM (1863); EXAMINATION OF SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S PHILOSOPHY (1865); THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN (1869); and AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1873). As a defender of individual freedom and human rights, John Stuart Mill lives on as a nineteenth-century champion of social reform. He died on May 7, 1873.
