assurance that legislation is a science and that the aim of laws is the promotion of human happiness. III. Every person is in the main and as a general rule the best judge of his own happiness. Hence legislation should aim at the removal of all those restrictions on the free action of an individual which are not necessary for securing the like freedom on the part of his neighbors. This dogma of laissez faire is not from a logical point of view an essential article of the utilitarian creed. A benevolent despot might enforce upon his people laws which, though they might diminish individual liberty, were likely, nevertheless, to ensure the well-being of his people. Yet laissez-faire was practically the most vital part of Bentham's doctrine. Bentham perceived that under a system of ancient customs modified by hap-hazard legislation, unnumbered restraints were placed on the actions of individuals, which were in no sense necessary for the safety and good order of the community at large, and he inferred at once that these restraints were evils. Consequently we have from him the eulogy of laissez-faire. But with him and his disciples it was a totally different thing from easy acquiescence in the existing conditions of life. It was a war-cry. It sounded the attack upon every restriction, not justifiable by some definite and assignable reason of utility. From these three guiding principles of legislative utilitarianism— the scientific character of sound legislation, the principle of utility, faith in laissez-faire-English individualists have in practice deduced the two corollaries: that the law ought to extend to the sphere and enforce the obligation of contracts; and that, as regards the possession of political power, every man ought to count for one and no man count for more than one. Each of these ideas has been constantly entertained by men who have never reduced it to a formula or carried it out to its full logical result; each of these two ideas has profoundly influenced modern legislation. 49. The Individualistic Theory of Government12 BY JOHN STUART MILL We have now reached the question to what objects governmenta! intervention in the affairs of society may or should extend. The supporters of interference have been content with asserting a general right and duty on the part of government to intervene, whereever its intervention would be useful; and when those who have 12 Adapted from Principles of Political Economy, Book v, chap. xi (1848). been called the laissez-faire school have attempted any definite limitation of the province of government, they have usually restricted it to the protection of person and property against force and fraud; a definition to which neither they nor any one else can deliberately adhere, since it excludes some of the most indispensable and unanimously recognized of the duties of government. Whatever theory we adopt respecting the foundation of the social union, and under whatever political institutions we live, there is a circle around every individual human being, which no government, be it that of one, or a few, or of the many, ought to be permitted to overstep: there is a part of the life of every person who has come to years of discretion, within which the individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled either by any other individual or by the public collectively. That there is, or ought to be, some space in human existence thus entrenched around, and sacred from authoritative intrusion, no one who professes the smallest regard to human freedom or dignity will call in question. Even in those portions of conduct which do affect the interest of others, the onus of making out a case always lies on the defenders of legal prohibitions. It is not a merely constructive or presumptive injury to others, which will justify the interference of law with individual freedom. To be prevented from doing what one is inclined to, or from acting according to one's own judgment of what is desirable, is not only always irksome, but always tends to starve the development of some portion of the bodily or mental faculties. either sensitive or active; and unless the conscience of the individual goes freely with the legal restraint, it partakes, either in a great or in a small degree, of the degradation of slavery. A second general objection to government agency is that every increase of the functions developing on the government is an increase of its power, both in the form of authority, and still more, in the indirect form of influence. The public collectively is abundantly ready to impose, not only its generally narrow views of its interests. but its abstract opinions, and even its tastes, as laws binding upon individuals. And the present civilization tends so strongly to make the power of persons acting in masses the only substantial power in society, that there never was more necessity for surrounding individual independence of thought, speech, and conduct, with the most powerful defences. Hence it is no less important in a democratic than in any other government, that all tendency on the part of public authorities to stretch their interference should be regarded with unremitting jealousy. A third general objection to government agency rests on the principle of the division of labour. Every additional function undertaken by the government is a fresh occupation imposed upon a body already overcharged with duties. A natural consequence is that most things are ill done; much not done at all, because the government is not able to do it without delays which are fatal to its purpose. I have reserved for the last place one of the strongest of the reasons against the extension of government agency. Even if the government could comprehend within itself, in each department, a!! the most eminent intellectual capacity and active talent of the nation. it would not be the less desirable that the conduct of a large portion of the affairs of society should be left in the hands of the persons immediately interested in them. A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches. There cannot be a combination of circumstances more dangerous to human welfare than that in which intelligence and talent are maintained at a high standard within a governing corporation, but starved and discouraged outside the pale. Few will dispute the more than sufficiency of these reasons, to throw, in every instance, the burden of making out a strong case, not on those who resist, but on those who recommend government interference. Laissez-faire, in short, should be the general practice; every departure from it, unless required by some great good, is a certain evil. But we must now turn to the second part of our task, and direct our attention to cases, in which some of those general objections are altogether absent, while those which can never be got rid of entirely are overruled by counter-considerations of still greater importance. Can it be affirmed, for instance, that the consumer is the most competent judge of the end? Is the buyer always qualified to judge of the commodity? The proposition can be admitted only with numerous abatements and exceptions. This is peculiarly true of those things which are chiefly useful as tending to raise the character of human beings. The uncultivated cannot be competent judges of cultivation. Those who most need to be made wiser and better usually desire it least, and if they desired it, would be incapable of finding the way to it by their own lights. In the matter of education, the intervention of government is justifiable, because the case is not one in which the interest and judgment of the consumer are a sufficient security for the goodness of the commodity. Let us now consider other cases, where, for one reason or another, governmental interference is necessary. These may be classed under several heads. First, the individual who is presumed to be the best judge of his own interests may be incapable of judging or acting for himself; may be a lunatic, an idiot, an infant; or, though not wholly incapable, may be of immature years and judgment. In this case the foundation of the laissez-faire principle breaks down entirely. The person most interested is not the best judge of the matter, når a competent judge at all. To take an example from the peculiar province of political economy; it is right that children, and young persons not yet arrived at maturity, should be protected, so far as the eye and hand of the state can reach, from being over-worked. Freedom of contract, in the case of children, is but another word for freedom of coercion. Education also is not a thing which parents or relatives should have it in their power to withhold. But the classing together, for this and other purposes, of women and children, appears to me both indefensible in principle and mischievous in practice. Children below a certain age cannot judge or act for themselves, but women are as capable as men of appreciating and managing their own concerns, and the only hindrance to their doing so arises from the injustice of their present social position. If women had as absolute a control as men have over their own persons and their own patrimony or acquisitions, there would be no plea for limiting their hours of labouring for themselves, in order that they might have time to labour for the husband, in what is called his home. Women employed in factories are the only women in the labouring rank of life whose position is not that of slaves and drudges. A second exception is when an individual attempts to decide irrevocably now what will be best for his interest at some future and distant time. The practical maxim of leaving contracts free is not applicable without great limitations in case of engagements in perpetuity; and the law should be extremely jealous of such engage ments. The third exception which I shall notice has reference to the great class of cases in which the individuals can only manage the concern by delegated agency, and in which the so-called private management is, in point of fact, hardly better entitled to be called management by the persons interested, than administration by a public officer. Whatever, if left to spontaneous agency, can only be done by joint stock associations, will often be as well, and sometimes better done, as far as the actual work is concerned, by the state. Government management is, indeed, proverbially jobbing, careless, and ineffective, but so likewise has generally been joint-stock manage ment. To a fourth cause of exception I must request particular attention, it being one to which, as it appears to me, the attention of political economists has not yet been sufficiently drawn. There are matters in which the interference of law is required, not to overrule the judgment of individuals respecting their own interest, but to give effect to that judgment; they being unable to give effect to it except by concert, which concert again cannot be effectual unless it receives validity and sanction from the law. For illustration I may advert to the question of diminishing the hours of labour. Let us suppose that a general reduction of the hours of factory labour, say from ten to nine, would be for the advantage of the work people; that they would receive as high wages, or nearly as high, for nine hours' labour as they receive for ten. If this would be the result, and if the operatives generally are convinced that it would, the limitation, some may say, will be adopted spontaneously. I answer, that it will not be adopted unless the body of operatives bind themselves to one another to abide by it. For however beneficial the observance of the regulation might be to the class collectively, the immediate interest of every individual would lie in violating it: and the more numerous those were who adhered to the rule, the more would individuals gain by departing from it. Fifthly the argument against government interference cannot apply to the very large class of cases, in which those acts of individuals with which the government claims to interfere, are not done by those individuals for their own interest, but for the interest of other people. This includes, among other things, the important and much agitated subject of public charity. Though individuals should, in general, be left to do for themselves whatever it can reasonably be expected that they should be capable of doing, yet when they are at any rate not to be left to themselves, but to be helped by other people, the queston arises whether it is better that they should receive this help exclusively from individuals, and therefore uncertainty and casually, or by systematic arrangements, in which society acts through its organ, the state. Other cases, falling within the same general principle, are those in which the acts done by individuals, though intended solely for their own benefit, involve consequences extending indefinitely beyond them, to interests of the nation or of posterity, for which society in its collective capacity is alone able, and alone bound, to provide. The same principle extends also to a variety of cases, in which important public services are to be performed, while vet there is not |