Mill's Socialism Re-examined

Abstract McCabe and Turner raise a number of perceptive points concerning my treatment of John Stuart Mill's political economy of progress and its relation to socialism. In giving context to their points this article first tries to clarify Mill's understanding of socialism as anchored in his positive classical economics. Mill the utilitarian philosopher endorses socialism, but he anticipates its arrival based on his materialist understanding of history. In this materialist context, the article argues that Mill expects the economy of worker cooperatives to advance from one focused on relational equality to one focused on luck egalitarianism. This shift is again supported by Mill's own utilitarian principles, but it is ultimately the product of what he anticipates will be the political economy of the cooperative mode of production.