Abstract
Can John Stuart Mill’s radicalism achieve liberal egalitarian ends? Joseph Persky’s The Political Economy of Progress is a provocative and compelling discussion of Mill’s economic thought. It is also a defense of radical political economy. Providing valuable historical context, Persky traces Mill’s intellectual journey as an outspoken proponent of laissez-faire to a cautious supporter of co-operative socialism. I propose two problems with Persky’s optimistic take on radical social reform. First, demands for substantive equality have led past radicals to endorse exclusionary nationalist and eugenics policies. It pushes some contemporary radicals towards illiberal interventions into intimate social life. Second, the radical critique of capitalism relies on an account of profit that neglects the epistemic function of private-property markets. Once this is acknowledged, capitalism retains some progressive credentials against radical alternatives.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aligica, P. D. (2009). Julian Simon and the “Limits to Growth” Neo-Malthusianism. The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development, 1(3), 73–84.
Becquemont, D. (2011). Social Darwinism: from reality to myth and from myth to reality. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 42(1), 12–19. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.11.001.
Boettke, P. J. (2002). Information and knowledge: Austrian economics in search of its uniqueness. The Review of Austrian Economics, 15(4), 263–274.
Brennan, J. (2007). Rawls’ Paradox. Constitutional Political Economy, 18(4), 287–299. doi:10.1007/s10602-007-9024-2.
Buchanan, J. M. (1999). Natural and Artifactual Man. In The logical foundations of constitutional liberty (pp. 246–259). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1999). The calculus of consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Cohen, G. A. (2008). Rescuing justice and equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Cowen, N. (2016). Millian liberalism and extreme pornography. American Journal of Political Science, 60(2), 509–520. doi:10.1111/ajps.12238.
Donner, W. (1993). John Stuart Mill’s liberal feminism. Philosophical Studies, 69(2/3), 155–166. doi:10.2307/4320378.
Drucker, P. F. (1976). The unseen revolution: how pension fund socialism came to America. London: Heinemann.
Dworkin, R. (2013). Rights as trumps. In A. Kavanagh & J. Oberdiek (Eds.), Arguing About Law (pp. 335–344). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
Farrant, A., & Crampton, E. (2008). Robust analytical egalitarianism: Worst-case political economy and the socialist calculation debate. In S. Peart & D. M. Levy (Eds.), The street porter and the philosopher: conversations on analytical egalitarianism (pp. 108–132). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Freeman, S. (2001). Illiberal libertarians: Why libertarianism is not a liberal view. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 30(2), 105–151. doi:10.1111/j.1088-4963.2001.00105.x.
Gaus, G. F. (1983). The modern liberal theory of man. London: New York: Croom Helm; St. Martin’s Press.
Hankins, K., & Thrasher, J. (2015). When justice demands inequality. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 12(2), 172–194. doi:10.1163/17455243-4681035.
Hayek, F. A. v. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. American Economic Review, 35(4), 519–530.
Hayek, F. A. v. (2002). Competition as a discovery procedure. Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 5(3), 9–23.
Hayek, F. A. v. (2007). The road to serfdom: Text and documents (Definitive ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hayek, F. A. v. (2009). The pure theory of capital. Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Hicks, J. R. (2001). Value and capital: an inquiry into some fundamental principles of economic theory (2. ed., reprint.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Humboldt, W. von (1854). The Sphere and Duties of Government (The Limits of State Action). (J. Coulthard, Trans.). London: John Chapman. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/589. Accessed 18 Apr 2017.
Jones, G. (2016). Hive mind: How your nation’s IQ matters so much more than your own. Stanford, Calfornia: Stanford Economics and Finance, an imprint of Stanford University Press.
Kenworthy, L. (1995). Equality and efficiency: The illusory tradeoff. European Journal of Political Research, 27(2), 225–254. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6765.1995.tb00637.x.
Kirzner, I. M. (1996). The meaning of market process: Essays in the development of modern Austrian economics. London: Routledge.
Kirzner, I. M. (1997). Entrepreneurial discovery and the competitive market process: An Austrian approach. Journal of Economic Literature, 35(1), 60–85.
Kirzner, I. M. (2012). Essays on capital and interest: an Austrian perspective. (P. J. Boettke & F. E. Sautet, Eds.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
Knight, F. H. (1921). Risk, uncertainty, and profit. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Leonard, T. C. (2003). “More merciful and not less effective”: Eugenics and American economics in the progressive era. History of Political Economy, 35(4), 687–712.
Leonard, T. C. (2005). Retrospectives: Eugenics and economics in the progressive era. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(4), 207–224. doi:10.1257/089533005775196642.
Leonard, T. C. (2009). Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s social Darwinism in American thought. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 71(1), 37–51. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2007.11.004.
Meade, J. E. (2012). Efficiency, equality and the ownership of property. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge. Accessed 22 Aug 2013.
Meadowcroft, J. (2014). Exchange, unanimity and consent: a defence of the public choice account of power. Public Choice, 158(1–2), 85–100. doi:10.1007/s11127-012-9925-0.
Mill, J. S. (1977). Essays on politics and society. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press.
Mill, J. S. (1984). Essays on equality, law, and education. Toronto; Buffalo: London: University of Toronto Press; Routledge & K. Paul.
Mises, L. von (1998). Human action: a treatise on economics (Scholar’s ed.). Auburn, Ala: Ludwig Von Mises Institute.
O’Driscoll, G. P., & Rizzo, M. J. (2015). Austrian economics re-examined: The economics of time and ignorance (Expanded ed.). New York: Routledge.
Pennington, M. (2014). Realistic idealism and classical liberalism: Evaluating free market fairness. Critical Review, 26(3–4), 375–407. doi:10.1080/08913811.2014.957022.
Perkins, A. (2016). The welfare trait: How state benefits affect personality. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Persky, J. (2016). The political economy of progress: John Stuart Mill and modern radicalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. (A. Goldhammer, Trans.). Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Plomin, R., & Deary, I. J. (2015). Genetics and intelligence differences: Five special findings. Molecular Psychiatry, 20(1), 98–108. doi:10.1038/mp.2014.105.
Rawls, J. (1975). Fairness to Goodness. The Philosophical Review, 84(4), 536. doi:10.2307/2183853.
Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: a restatement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (2002). The law of peoples. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: Harvard Univ. Press.
Rawls, J., & Van Parijs, P. (2003). Three letters on the law of peoples and the European Union. Revue de philosophie economique, 7, 7–20.
Riley, J. (2003). Interpreting Mill’s qualitative hedonism. The Philosophical Quarterly, 53(212), 410–418.
Riley, J. (2008). What are Millian qualitative superiorities? Prolegomena: časopis za filozofiju, 7(1), 61–79.
Riley, J. (2014). Rawls, Mill and utilitarianism. In J. Mandle & D. A. Reidy (Eds.), A companion to Rawls (pp. 397–412). Malden: Wiley.
Rogge, B. A. (1979). Can capitalism survive? Indianapolis: Liberty Press.
Samuelson, P. A. (1947). Economic foundations of economic analysis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Segall, S. (2011). If you’re a luck egalitarian, how come you read bedtime stories to your children? Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 14(1), 23–40. doi:10.1080/13698230.2010.518388.
Silver, A. (1989). Friendship and trust as moral ideals: an historical approach. European Journal of Sociology, 30(02), 274–297. doi:10.1017/S0003975600005890.
Simon, J. L. (1989). The ultimate resource. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tebble, A. J. (2016). Epistemic liberalism: a defence. London; New York: Routledge.
Tomasi, J. (2012). Free market fairness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Waldron, J. (1996). Supply without burthen revisited. Iowa L. Rev., 82, 1467.
Weintraub, E. R. (2012). Keynesian historiography and the anti-Semitism question. History of Political Economy, 44(1), 41–67. doi:10.1215/00182702-1504050.
Zivi, K. (2006). Cultivating character: John Stuart Mill and the subject of rights. American Journal of Political Science, 50(1), 49–61. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00169.x.
Zivi, K. (2012). Making rights claims: a practice of democratic citizenship. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/J500057/1) and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cowen, N. Mill’s radical end of laissez-faire: A review essay of the political economy of progress: John Stuart Mill and modern radicalism. Rev Austrian Econ 31, 373–386 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-017-0387-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11138-017-0387-y
Keywords
- The political economy of progress: John Stuart Mill and modern radicalism
- Mill
- Marx
- Radical political economy
- Co-operatives
- Laissez-faire
- Utilitarianism
- Bentham
- Rawls
- Meade