James Mill (1773-1836) is today best known as Jeremy Bentham's chief disciple and John Stuart Mill's father. Yet Mill himself was a formidable and important Utilitarian thinker in his own right, who earned the respect of even those who disagreed with him. His range was enormous (historian, political philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist, and economist), repeatedly crossing the disciplinary boundaries we take for granted today. This volume presents a wide sampling of Mill's political writings and polemical essays. It begins with his classic work, the Essay on Government, it also includes pieces on the protection of rights, the importance of education, the free press, the secret ballot, and government's use of punishment against those who violate the rights of fellow citizens. The collection concludes with Macauley's famous critique of the Essay, and Mill's heretofore unnoticed reply in his Fragment on Mackintosh (1835). This is the first time that such a selection of Mill's political works has appeared as one volume.
James Mill was the consummate utilitarian economist and theorist: his numerous intellectual interests and practical pursuits shatter the net boundaries of modern specialist scholarship in social science. Mill's many-sided genius was primarily a product of the age in which he lived. The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries saw a remarkable flowering of intellectual genius in Scotland in all of the arts and sciences, which gave the country a leading place in the broad European movement known as the Enlightenment, Mill being in fact only one of many brilliant men Scotland produced at that time. Mill's writings in this volume, first published in 1966, cover his development as an economist and are an attempt to assess his contribution to classic political economy. Particular attention is paid to the formative but less well-known pre-Benthamite period of his life. The volume opens with a substantial biographical assessment of Mill's life and work. The selections are specifically divided into four groups consisting of: early economic writings ("An Essay of the Impolicy of a Bounty on the Exportation of Grain," "Commerce Defended," and "Smith on Money and Exchange"); James Mill and David Ricardo ("Elements of Political Economy"); Mill on scope and method ("Whether Political Economy is Useful"); and Mill and India ("History of British India"). Donald Winch provides an introduction to each section that contextualizes the essays in Mill's own work and the economic thought of the time. James Mill: Selected Economic Writings is sure to be of interest to students of economic theory and social policy. One of the founders of utilitarianism, he adopted that doctrine to both British conditions and Britain's broader imperial pursuits. Donald Winch is professor of economics at the University of Sussex. He has authored and edited many books and papers on economics, economic theory, economic policy and economic history.
James Mill (1773-1836) was a Scottish historian, economist, political theorist, and philosopher. He was the father of influential philosopher of classical liberalism, John Stuart Mill. In 1798, he was licensed as a preacher, but met with little success. From 1790 to 1802, in addition to holding various tutorships, he occupied himself with historical and philosophical studies. From 1803 to 1806, he was editor of an ambitious periodical called the Literary Journal. About the end of 1806 he began his The History of British India, which he took twelve years to complete. In 1814, he wrote a number of articles, containing an exposition of utilitarianism, for the supplement to the fifth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the most important being Jurisprudence, Prisons and Prison Discipline and Government. In 1821, he helped found the Political Economy Club in London, which became a stomping ground for Ricardian economists and Benthamite radicals. Mill's Elements of Political Economy (1821) became the leading textbook exposition of doctrinaire Ricardian economics
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