ABSTRACT
John Stuart Mill's ethical judgments have weathered the years surprisingly well. Most people would agree that such traits as intelligence, altruism, industry, integrity, justice, prudence, mental activity, energy, courage and originality are well worth fostering. To analyse how society can be transformed Mill needed a conceptual apparatus, supplied by his methodology, psychology, ethology, and economic theory. Among the problems Mill faced in fashioning the institutional framework is that of multiple and contradictory ends. In particular, because Mill defended liberty and restrictions on liberty simultaneously he is charged either with simple minded libertarianism or moral totalitarianism. Socialism, in Mill's philosophy of history, comes about with the improvement of man. The two aims, improvement and socialism, coincide. Mill's policy proposals were rapidly overtaken by events. Population growth started to fall, and so did the prices of agricultural goods. Utopian socialism was rapidly replaced by Marxism; Mill's socialism became irrelevant. Popular representation was extended without any safeguards for the representation of the elite.
