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Can national growth be sustained indefinitely? How much should government intervene in a competitive market economy? The questions John Stuart Mill raised a century and a half ago, in 1848's Principles of Political Economy, and the answers he found, are just as critical-and just as contentiously debated-today. Through a lens of what the philosopher himself termed "philosophical radicalism"-and what some today call "democratic liberalism"-Mill takes a fresh look at Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and other influential works of political thought of his time, and recasts them from a more scientific viewpoint, suggesting that such realities as the unequal distribution of wealth were not "natural" but rather a matter of human choice... choices we continue to have to make in our ever more complicated economy. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Selected Writings of John Stuart Mill and On Liberty. English philosopher and politician JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873) was one of the foremost figure of Western intellectual thought in the late 19th century. He served as an administrator in the East Indian Company from 1823 to 1858, and as a member of parliament from 1865 to 1868. Among his essays on a wide range of political and social thought are On Liberty (1859), Considerations on Representative Government (1861), and The Subjection of Women (1869).
John Stuart Mill (1806–73) was the most influential English philosopher of the nineteenth century. His vast intellectual output covered a range of subjects — traditional philosophy and logic, economics, political science — and included this work, a founding document in the area now known as social science. In The Logic of the Moral Sciences, Mill applied his considerable talents to examining how the study of human behavior, society, and history could be established on a rational, philosophical basis. The philosopher maintains that casual empiricism and direct experiment are not applicable to the study of complex social phenomena. Instead, "empirical laws," drawn from historical generalizations, must be derivable from a deductive science of human nature. Mills' insights and approaches have remained relevant in the century and a half since this treatise's publication. This volume will prove of vital interest to historians of philosophy and the social sciences as well as to undergraduate social science majors.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.
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Of the truths with which political economy has been enriched by Mr. Ricardo, none has contributed more to give to that branch of knowledge the comparatively precise and scientific character which it at present bears, than the more accurate analysis which he performed of the nature of the advantage which nations derive from a mutual interchange of their productions. Previously to his time, the benefits of foreign trade were deemed, even by the most philosophical enquirers, to consist in affording a vent for surplus produce, or in enabling a portion of the national capital to replace itself with a profit. The futility of the theory implied in these and similar phrases, was an obvious consequence from the speculations of writers even anterior to Mr. Ricardo. But it was he who first, in the chapter on Foreign Trade, of his immortal Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, substituted for the former vague and unscientific, if not positively false, conceptions with regard to the advantage of trade, a philosophical exposition which explains, with strict precision, the nature of that advantage, and affords an accurate measure of its amount.He shewed, that the advantage of an interchange of commodities between nations consists simply and solely in this, that it enables each to obtain, with a given amount of labour and capital, a greater quantity of all commodities taken together. This it accomplishes by enabling each, with a quantity of one commodity which has cost it so much labour and capital, to purchase a quantity of another commodity which, if produced at home, would have required labour and capital to a greater amount. To render the importation of an article more advantageous than its production, it is not necessary that the foreign country should be able to produce it with less labour and capital than ourselves. We may even have a positive advantage in its production: but, if we are so far favoured by circumstances as to have a still greater positive advantage in the production of some other article which is in demand in the foreign country, we may be able to obtain a greater return to our labour and capital by employing none of it in producing the article in which our advantage is least, but devoting it all to the production of that in which our advantage is greatest, and giving this to the foreign country in exchange for the other. It is not a difference in the absolute cost of production, which determines the interchange, but a difference in the comparative cost. It may be to our advantage to procure iron from Sweden in exchange for cottons, even although the mines of England as well as her manufactories should be more productive than those of Sweden; for if we have an advantage of one-half in cottons, and only an advantage of a quarter in iron, and could sell our cottons to Sweden at the price which Sweden must pay for them if she produced them herself, we should obtain our iron with an advantage of one-half, as well as our cottons. We may often, by trading with foreigners, obtain their commodities at a smaller expense of labour and capital than they cost to the foreigners themselves. The bargain is still advantageous to the foreigner, because the commodity which he receives in exchange, though it has cost us less, would have cost him more. As often as a country possesses two commodities, one of which it can produce with less labour, comparatively to what it would cost in a foreign country, than the other; so often it is the interest of the country to export the first mentioned commodity and to import the second; even though it might be able to produce both the one and the other at a less expense of labour than the foreign country can produce them, but not less in the same degree; or might be unable to produce either except at a greater expense, but not greater in the same degree.