John Stuart Mill was a bit of a weirdo, honestly. Imagine being three years old and learning Greek while other kids are eating dirt. By eight, you’re reading Herodotus and Plato. This wasn't some organic hobby; his father, James Mill, and the famous Jeremy Bentham basically treated him like a laboratory experiment in human intelligence. They wanted to create the perfect utilitarian genius. They succeeded, but they also gave him a massive nervous breakdown by age twenty.
That breakdown matters. It’s why Mill Principles of Political Economy, first published in 1848, isn't just a dry textbook. It’s a book with a soul.
Mill lived in a world of smog, child labor, and exploding Victorian industry. He saw the raw power of the market, but he couldn't stomach the idea that humans were just cogs in a machine. Most economists back then—the "classical" crowd like Ricardo—thought economic laws were as fixed as gravity. Mill disagreed. He thought we could actually choose how to share the wealth.
The Big Split: Production vs. Distribution
This is the "aha!" moment of the whole book. Mill makes a distinction that still makes free-market purists uncomfortable today.
He argues that the laws of production are a matter of physics and math. If you want to grow corn, you need land, labor, and tools. There’s no way around it. You can't just wish more corn into existence without putting in the work. It’s rigid.
But distribution? That’s a whole different ballgame.
Mill says that once the stuff is produced, society can do whatever it wants with it. "The distribution of wealth," he writes, "is a matter of human institution solely." This means taxes, inheritance laws, and welfare programs aren't "breaking" the economy; they are choices made by people. It sounds simple, but in 1848, this was explosive. It suggested that poverty wasn't an inevitable law of nature. It was a policy failure.
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Think about it this way. The way a smartphone is manufactured depends on supply chains and silicon. That’s production. But whether the profit from that phone goes to a CEO’s third yacht or toward funding a local library? That’s distribution. Mill basically gave us the permission to be capitalists in the factory and socialists in the tax office.
Why Mill Principles of Political Economy Hated Inheritance
Mill had a specific beef with people getting rich just because their parents were. He wasn't a communist—he loved competition—but he hated "unearned" wealth.
He argued that a person should be allowed to earn as much as they can through their own labor and talent. But the right to pass that down to children without limit? He wasn't a fan. He saw it as a shortcut to a new kind of aristocracy. He actually proposed heavy taxes on inheritance to keep the playing field level.
He wanted a world where people actually had to do something to be successful.
The Stationary State: No, We Don’t Need Infinite Growth
Every politician today talks about "growth" like it’s the only thing that keeps the universe from collapsing. GDP must go up. Always. Forever.
Mill thought that was a nightmare.
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He introduced the idea of the "Stationary State." Basically, he thought that eventually, the economy would stop growing. And he was fine with that! He didn't think we needed to keep building more factories and buying more junk until the end of time.
Instead, he imagined a world where the economy stayed flat but human quality of life went up. People would spend less time working and more time painting, reading, or just hanging out in nature. He was an early environmentalist, too. He worried that if we kept growing forever, we’d kill every wild thing on the planet just to make room for more "stuff."
Honestly, he sounds like a guy who would’ve been really into the four-day workweek.
Women, Liberty, and the Workplace
You can't talk about Mill Principles of Political Economy without mentioning that he was a massive advocate for women's rights. At a time when women were legally the property of their husbands, Mill was arguing that keeping half the population out of the workforce was an economic disaster.
He didn't just want women to vote; he wanted them to have economic independence.
He worked closely with Harriet Taylor, who later became his wife. Many scholars, including Mill himself, credited her with some of the most progressive ideas in his work. She pushed him to look at the social side of economics, focusing on the plight of the working class and the injustice of gender roles.
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The Problem with Laissez-Faire
Mill is often called the last of the classical economists, but he was also the bridge to modern social democracy. He liked the idea of "laissez-faire" (leaving the market alone), but he had a huge list of exceptions.
- Education: Mill thought the government had to provide education because a child can't judge the value of learning for themselves.
- Consumer Protection: He didn't trust that people always knew when they were being cheated.
- Public Utilities: He saw that things like water and gas were natural monopolies. If you let a private company own the only water pipe in town, they’ll gouge you. Mill thought the state should step in.
- Labor Rights: He eventually became very sympathetic to unions. He saw that an individual worker has zero leverage against a massive factory owner.
Is Mill Still Relevant?
The short answer: Yes.
Look at the debates we’re having today about Universal Basic Income (UBI), wealth taxes, and climate change. Mill was there first. He was trying to figure out how to keep the efficiency of the market without losing our humanity.
He wasn't perfect. Some of his views on colonialism are, frankly, cringey and dated. He fell into the Victorian trap of thinking some "backward" nations needed British guidance. It’s a glaring blind spot in a man who otherwise obsessed over liberty.
But his core question remains: What is the point of an economy? Is it just to make the numbers on a screen bigger? Or is it to create a world where people can actually live well?
Actionable Takeaways from Mill’s Philosophy
If you’re looking to apply Mill’s logic to the 21st century, here’s how to do it:
- Audit your "unearned" advantages. Mill believed in merit. If you’re succeeding because of a system you didn't build, acknowledge it.
- Focus on the "Stationary State" in your own life. Do you really need a 10% raise every year if it costs you your mental health? Sometimes, enough is enough.
- Support competition, but regulate monopolies. Mill loved the "hustle," but he hated when one person owned the whole street.
- Distinguish between hard work and luck. When looking at tax policy or social issues, remember Mill’s split: producing wealth is one thing; deciding how we treat the people who didn't win the "birth lottery" is another.
Mill’s book is long. It’s dense. It’s sometimes frustrating. But it’s the foundation of the world we’re still trying to build—a world where the market serves us, instead of us serving the market.