AR and John Stewart Mill

[A.A]

Hello everyone,

I have read somewhere that Ayn Rand denounced John Stewart Mill`s On Liberty as a hazardous book to Capitalism. Does anyone have a source that verifies that, and can anyone quote that source so I know what exactly was the essence of Rand`s criticism?

Thanks in advance.

[LaszloWalrus]

You can find a quotation in The Ayn Rand Lexicon under the "Utilitarianism" entry.

[A.A]

You can find a quotation in The Ayn Rand Lexicon under the "Utilitarianism" entry.

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't have the Ayn Rand Lexicon in my current home, nor will I be able to obtain it in the next few days, until my referat on Mill has to be presented (on Monday, and I was hoping to get Rand`s perspective on it before that). So if you could quote the relevant text, or show me a link to the relevant text, it would mean a lot.

Thank you in advance.

[Bold Standard]

Thank you. Unfortunately, I don't have the Ayn Rand Lexicon in my current home, nor will I be able to obtain it in the next few days, until my referat on Mill has to be presented (on Monday, and I was hoping to get Rand`s perspective on it before that). So if you could quote the relevant text, or show me a link to the relevant text, it would mean a lot.

Thank you in advance.

I put Mill and Bentham in the Objectivism Research CD-ROM, and it pulled up mostly brief quips against Mill from AR, but there is a more substantial reference from The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff.

Virtually all the defenders of capitalism, from the nineteenth century to the present, accept the ethics of utilitarianism (with its slogan "The greatest happiness of the greatest number") as their moral base and justification—evading the appalling contradiction between capitalism and the altruist-collectivist nature of the utilitarian ethics. Mr. Cohen points out that utilitarianism is incompatible with justice, because it endorses the sacrifice of minorities to the interests of the majority. (I said this in 1946—see my old pamphlet Textbook of Americanism.)

[...]

What is the cause of today's egalitarian trend? For over two hundred years, Europe's predominantly altruist-collectivist intellectuals had claimed to be the voice of the people—the champions of the downtrodden, disinherited masses and of unlimited majority rule. "Majority" was the omnipotent word of the intellectuals' theology. "Majority will" and "majority welfare" were their moral base and political goal which—they claimed—permitted, vindicated and justified anything. With varying degrees of consistency, this belief was shared by most of Europe's social thinkers, from Marx to Bentham to John Stuart Mill (whose On Liberty is the most pernicious piece of collectivism ever adopted by suicidal defenders of liberty).

While the collectivists were finding their chief inspiration in the trends of Germany, their establishment opponents—the defenders of the American system, capitalism—were looking for answers primarily to England. During the crucial, turning-point years between the Civil War and the end of the century, they were relying for philosophic support mainly on two movements: classical economics and evolutionary biology.

The most philosophical representative of the former is John Stuart Mill, widely quoted by American conservatives at the time (and since). A weary agnostic on most of the fundamental issues of philosophy, Mill bases his defense of capitalism on the ethics of Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is a union of hedonism and Christianity. The first teaches man to love pleasure; the second, to love his neighbor. The union consists in teaching man to love his neighbor's pleasure. To be exact, the Utilitarians teach that an action is moral if its result is to maximize pleasure among men in general. This theory holds that man's duty is to serve—according to a purely quantitative standard of value. He is to serve not the well-being of the nation or of the economic class, but "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," regardless of who comprise it in any given issue. As to one's own happiness, says Mill, the individual must be "disinterested" and "strictly impartial"; he must remember that he is only one unit out of the dozens, or millions, of men affected by his actions. "All honor to those who can abnegate for themselves the personal enjoyment of life," says Mill, "when by such renunciation they contribute worthily to increase the amount of happiness in the world ...." [Footnote: Mill's Ethical Writings, ed. J.B. Schneewind (New York, Collier, 1965); Utilitarianism, pp. 291, 290.]

Capitalism, Mill acknowledges, is not based on any desire for abnegation or renunciation; it is based on the desire for selfish profit. Nevertheless, he says, the capitalist system ensures that, most of the time, the actual result of individual profit-seeking is the happiness of society as a whole. Hence the individual should be left free of government regulation. He should be left free not as an absolute (there are no absolutes, says Mill), but under the present circumstances—not on the ground of inalienable rights (there are no such rights, Mill holds), but of social utility.

Under capitalism, concluded one American economist of the period with evident moral relief, "the Lord maketh the selfishness of man to work for the material welfare of his kind." As one commentator observes, the essence of this argument is the claim that capitalism is justified by its ability to convert "man's baseness" to "noble ends." "Baseness" here means egoism; "nobility" means altruism. And the justification of individual freedom in terms of its contribution to the welfare of society means collectivism. [Footnote: Sidney Fine, Laissez Faire and the General-Welfare State (Ann Arbor, U. of Michigan P., 1964), p. 54. The economist quoted is Edward Atkinson, The Industrial Progress of the Nation (New York, 1890).]

Mill (along with Smith, Say, and the rest of the classical economists) was trying to defend an individualist system by accepting the fundamental moral ideas of its opponents. It did not take Mill long to grasp this contradiction in some terms and amend his political views accordingly. He ended his life as a self-proclaimed "qualified socialist."

[intellectualammo]

I have read somewhere that Ayn Rand denounced John Stewart Mill`s On Liberty as a hazardous book to Capitalism. Does anyone have a source that verifies that, and can anyone quote that source so I know what exactly was the essence of Rand`s criticism?

The only quote that I can find (and I've searched both my CD-ROM and the Lexicon) where Ayn Rand speaks specifically about JSM's "On Liberty" is in the quote from Bold Standard. The part where she says, "John Stuart Mill (whose On Liberty is the most pernicious piece of collectivism ever adopted by suicidal defenders of liberty)."

The essence of her criticism, you ask?

"...the social school of morality, exemplified by John Stuart Mill. Mill rejected the concept of individual rights and replaced it with the notion that the "public good" is the sole justification of individual freedom. (Society, he argued, has the power to enslave or destroy its exceptional men, but it should permit them to be free, because it benefits from their efforts.) Among the many defaults of the conservatives in the past hundred years, the most shameful one, perhaps, is the fact that they accepted John Stuart Mill as a defender of capitalism." ("Thought Control--Part III" ARL, Vol III, No. 2.) (emphasis added)

Shameful, because as Dr. Peikoff says in OP, "Mill bases his defense of capitalism on the ethics of Utilitarianism."(emphasis added)

Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism gives capitalism its proper moral base, an objective theory of values, not based upon a subjective or an intrinsic theory of values. Objectivism gives capitalism its proper philosophic defense, period.

Edited November 29, 2006 by intellectualammo

[A.A]

Thank you both very much.

[A.A]

I thought it would not be very nice to ask people to write lengthy quotes to me, and then just give them short thanks. So thanks again, the quotes helped a lot to clear my head, and to make me understand why Mill was not such a good and beneficial philosopher after all; although I admit I still ponder whether I agree with Rand and Peikoff about the assertion that at the bottom line he was harmful rather than useful. After all, many influential philosophers spoke very directly against liberty; to have a prominent philosopher speak in favor of freedom of speech with such zeal, even if for the wrong grounds- I am not sure historically that isn't a good think, even though undoubtedly Ayn Rand was much much better.

In the referat I gave about Mill at the seminar, however, I felt more than ever the meaning of this icon- I explained Peikoff and Rand`s criticism extensively, and strengthened it with my own. The professor just ignored my entire criticism, and went on to enthusiastically support Mill because of my professor's zealous advocacy for academic freedom. A worthy cause, no doubt; but it doesn't mean he has to ignore Mill's epistemological shaky grounds (at best) for establishing freedom. No wonder that when my professor- a very classical liberal at spirit- started talking against mandatory public education (a view that is deemed very extreme in my country), one of the students immediately referred him to Mill's words on the subject, and my professor stuttered a bit.

[KendallJ]

No wonder that when my professor- a very classical liberal at spirit- started talking against mandatory public education (a view that is deemed very extreme in my country), one of the students immediately referred him to Mill's words on the subject, and my professor stuttered a bit.

I hope you laughed out loud

Thanks for defending Rand's ideas!