Objection to John Stuart Mill

A Common Objection to Mill
The most common criticism of the position Mill argues in On Liberty and of the liberal tradition derived most directly from Mill is this: What room does his model of society have for those who are excluded from the competitions he favours because they have no access to the competitive arenas or to the training facilities necessary to equip them for the competition?
Consider, for example, the issues of free speech and argument, the engines that are going to drive society's progress. Where are the forums for these debates? Mill would no doubt argue that these are to be found in all sorts of places—in the newspapers, legislatures, public meetings, universities, novels, plays, and so on—in short, in the political, social, and literary culture all around everyone.
But one might still raise some objections about ownership of these forums. Someone controls access to the newspapers and legislatures, so how do those who have no stake in such ownership or who are expressly barred from such forums or who cannot afford to enter participate in the process which will lead to social progress? Without direct government interference to change the regulations governing access or the economic arrangements which make access possible, how will things change?
Mill's answer would be, I think, a re-emphasis of his basic points. Yes, it may be difficult, but the individuals concerned must speak their opinions, join the debates to the extent they can, and seek, through persuasion, to change the situation, without any arbitrary actions by the government or physical harm to others. They need to create their own forums, raise their voices by all the means at their disposal, limited though these may be.
An excellent example of what Mill would suggest might well be the history of modern feminism, in which, for the most part, those who were excluded from many forums made a concerted effort lasting many years to state their views, argue their case, and persuade others (in all sorts of ways—pamphlets, novels, newspaper articles, films, radio broadcasts, public protests, and so on). Social progress was achieved and is still being achieved by the ways in which these spokespersons persuaded society to improve. The debate has led to a re-orienting of priorities and significant changes in access to all sorts of things for women, without (for the most part) any harm to others or heavy-handed government interference and legislation before the fact (other than certain affirmative action policies, of which Mill would almost certainly disapprove, although he was an ardent champion of women's equality).
How persuasive is that reply of Mill's? Well, that depends. While it's true that the modern women's movement represents a significant progress for some women, one might well argue (as many Marxists have argued) that increasing access is not much of an improvement if it does not lead to significant economic progress. What use is access to university education or to the professions to a woman who is still desperately poor and cannot afford to benefit from that access or who quickly runs into a pink ceiling? What does Mill's vision have to offer someone who is going to lose out in any social competition (and every competition requires losers as well as winners, with the former vastly outnumbering the latter)?
That question (and others like it) have made some people very suspicious of Mill's argument, seeing in it a defence of the status quo, a justification for the existing state of affairs in which those most able to prosper (like John Stuart Mill himself) are given all sorts of freedom to live their own lives, while those who suffer under the present arrangements are told that the best thing for them is to participate more fully in the system which oppresses them and locks doors in their faces. Is it really enough to say, as Mill does, that allowing the most successful and creative spirits more freedom will in the long run benefit everyone (even those at the bottom)? In the long run, as John Maynard Keynes observed, we are all dead. What about justice now?
For that reason, in modern liberal democracies we have not fully endorsed Mill's principles in many significant areas, because we are more immediately concerned about equality (especially equality of training and opportunity, and, in Canada, of medical care) at the expense of liberty. In addition, we have given government a massive role in regulating and planning our economies (to cope with some of the nastier effects of liberty, like pollution and poverty). That has not, however, taken Mill's position off the table, since a constant feature of our political debates is the role of government in all sorts of areas, and in those debates the points Mill makes are frequently put forward, especially by those who, like Mill, want more freedom to compete. The argument they make is exactly the one he makes: competitive variety in a social climate of freedom helps to create a better society for everyone. In recent years this argument, derived from the pages of On Liberty, seems to be gaining momentum (in Free Trade debates and the increased pressures for a private medical system in Canada, for example) and many western democracies are dismantling various attempts to ease the strains of the competition Mill favours (e.g., National Health Care, affirmatives action programs, quota systems, and so on).
Some Consequences
It should be clear that here in Canada we are very much direct heirs of Mill's doctrines. We believe in freedom of speech and freedom to live with a very large scale of private liberty in all sorts of matters: how we speak, what we believe, how we dress, where we live, and so on (many of us take those liberties for granted). We accept that others have the same freedoms within the harm principle.
At the same time, Canadians, as I have mentioned, are generally not so willing as Mill to limit government control: unlike Mill we expect the government to play the major role in education and medical care, and we directly require the government's limitations on certain kinds of speech. At the moment we are all aware of a sharp conflict over the clash between Mill's principles of free speech and our desire to control speech (a relatively recent major news story was the ruling about the possession of child pornography, a decision in which a Vancouver judge determined that condemning someone for such possession was a violation of our right to free speech). And we all still remember an APEC hearing in which the central issue was the government's interference with the right of citizens to protest.
Some people are also deeply concerned about how the creation of certain native self-governing communities or Quebec separation may lead to social structures in which the individual liberty of the participant is unduly interfered with (this is a fascinating conflict between the two versions of freedom: the freedom to live as a self-governing people over against the freedom to do as one likes within the limits of the harm principle).
And at a time when we expect the government to fix so many things and to take care of so many public issues, reading Mill is a very useful and often persuasive reminder that trusting the government to take care of so much may have social consequences we will regret. His essay is a plea for faith in the imaginative energies and creativity of those who are capable of transforming society and for the continuing defence and extension of those liberties essential to the full expression of such creativity. If that means we have to put up with hateful opinions, odd conduct, often self-destructive behaviour, and (let it be said) significant inequalities, that is a price which, Mill claims, is, in the long run, well worth paying.
Mill's argument generates some interesting criticisms, of course. I've mentioned a major one above. We will be considering some of these next week in our study of The Communist Manifesto. But the strength of his argument is worth considering and learning from. For freedom of speech and the liberty to choose our own lifestyle are not invulnerable: there are always people (and governments) wishing to take away or restrict those liberties (we notice how quickly, in the aftermath of the September 11 World Trade Centre terrorist attacks, the government moved to restrict our negative liberty, arrogating to itself all sorts of new powers of arrest and detention. Many observers are justifiably worried that this is more than just a temporary trend).
John Stuart Mill's argument is worth pondering as an eloquent and frequently very persuasive defence of many of the most valuable features of our way of life—and may help to explain why we have faith in many of those freedoms too many people simply take for granted. It also serves to remind us what we have to do if we wish actively to defend and promote those freedoms we cherish.
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/mill2.htm