Mill's Political Thoughts Of Liberalism

Liberalism is always the mainstream political thought in Western Capitalist Countries. In the West, Liberalism is not only a basic political faith, but also the orientation of the social system construction and policy. The thought of Liberalism may date back to the City-State Democratic System in Ancient Greece and the Citizen Culture, Roman Republic System, Stoic Philosophy thoughts, Roman law and the factors liberty, equality, legal system and individualism contained in Medieval Christian Theology. From Hobbes and Mill, Liberalism has gained continual development.Mill is a famous English political ideologist of Liberalism in the 19th century, and his political thoughts of Liberalism has always deeply influenced England even the whole Western Countries with its special vitality. Mill's political thought is not exactly the same as traditional Liberalism and also differs from Neo-liberalism. His thoughts indicate the great change and important turn of Liberalism thoughts in Britain, possessing a vital position in the western political and ideological history, for his bridging role from classic liberalism to Neo-liberalism. His On Liberty which published in 1856 is regarded as one of classic literatures of liberty championship in western ideology history. As the representative figure of Liberalism in 19th century, he is both a Utilitarianist and a Liberalist, and he deeply realized the inner imperfection of Bentham's Political Philosophy of Utilitarianism. He modified and developed Bentham's thoughts, making it more perfect, setting suitable tension between utility and liberty, regarding Utilitarianism as a more stable political philosophy base of his liberty thoughts. He also defended for his liberty thoughts, according to this, he gradually formed his own state theory, political theory, liberty theory, namely are his liberalism political thoughts. Mill's thought is the typical representative of which in England in 19th century.Mill's contribution to the development of liberty thoughts is self-evident. Unlike former liberals, Mill did not regard liberty as pursuing political right but rather standing on social reality of Capitalism development at that time, succeeding to the basic standpoint of classic liberalism, restudying on liberal principle from social liberty point of view, enlarging the liberty scope, supposing himself is a social principle, accordingly expand the vision of liberty. His individual liberty discussion played an important role in promoting the development and spread of Liberalism. He put forward majority tyranny, considering the opinion oppression of majority to minority was worse than political oppression. On this basis, Mill gave Liberty a new explanation, defining it as social limited interference, whose purpose was to protect individual rights from any intervention by society, defending liberty principle, making individual liberty gain more vast space. But he was not liberty supremacy, and he set necessary limitation to individual liberty. He succeeded to the tradition liberal's idea that the aim of government to guarantee citizen's happiness is Necessary Sin, proposing government doing nothing, agreeing with laissez-faire principle, considering government must give moderate interference for Great Kindness and avoiding negative effects of laissez-faire. So he is not liberty supremacy like majority think, but the forerunner of state intervention theory. On the basis of summing up development history of England parliament system, through many years'thinking, he became the first person who completely demonstrated various problems relation to representative government. Mill emphasized that if we want to evaluate a government, we should according to its action towards people and matters, according to how to train and treat citizen, according to the tendency of good or bad to citizen. Representative government could achieve liberty better, and it was also the political guarantee of liberty.This thesis discusses Mill's political thoughts of liberalism in four parts. The first part introduces the historical background and ideological origin of Mill's liberalism thoughts. Aiming at the period of British industrial revolution, this thesis analyses industrial revolution and British political needs how to influence Mill's liberalism thoughts, and the effect of Bentham as political thoughts origin. The second part, Mill's utilitarianism supports his liberalism thoughts in politics and philosophy, Mill modified the basic principle of Bentham's utilitarianism thoughts. He pointed out that happiness not only differ in quantity but quality, Mill's happiness view is the core of modifying hedonism, and it is also the key to deeply understand the difference between quantity and quality, and to understand individual self-development and the value of liberty. He also regarded the progress of society was final goal. If individual development can promote the progress of society, or the inhibition of individual development must hinder the progress of society, freedom and development could make more demonstration. The third part shows connotations of Mill's political thoughts of liberalism, which is the emphasis of this thesis. The main content is the proposal of relative individual freedom, including four points as follow, freedom of consciousness, free development of individuality, intervention scope of society and the threat to freedom from most tyranny. On the purpose of attaching importance to individual freedom and free individuality, and fully considering the thread from government and public opinion, Mill believed freedom should have institutional guarantee, that is to say we should have a government form to maintain freedom. So he put forward the idea of representative government. The last part shows the characteristics and influence of Mill's political thoughts of liberalism. Mill's liberalism thoughts have characteristics from political freedom to social freedom, and from laissez-faire to state intervention. His thought is obviously that negative freedom and active freedom exist at the same time. He succeeded to tradition liberalism thoughts, summing up 200 years'developing experience of capitalism and theory achievement. He reconsidered many important social political problems, developed liberalism, and paved the way for the appearance of neo-liberalism.