ABSTRACT
The modern debate on John Stuart Mill and socialism focuses mainly on his varying assessment of contemporary socialist schemes. Mill briefly subscribed to Socialism under the influence of Harriet Taylor and the 1848 revolution in France, before reverting to an orthodox support of capitalism is therefore spurious. Probably the important departure from classical political economics came when Mill started to question the virtues of the system of private property. Mill described his early position towards capitalism in the Autobiography. The systems Mill assessed were Communism, St. Simonianism, Fourierism and Revolutionary Socialism. In 1852 he deleted the undoubtedly important argument that people who work in a capitalist society at a fixed wage are induced to hard work by the prospect of "preference in employment" and promotion hence wages are by no means fixed in the long run. Up to the publication of the second edition of the Principles Mill was simply appalled by the absurdity of some the Fourierist's proposals.
