Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
This is a Reading List based upon a Liberty Fund Conference on “Liberty and Responsibility in Constitutional Political Economy: The Mill-Macaulay Debate”.
Liberty and Responsibility in Constitutional Political Economy: The Mill-Macaulay Debate
Topic
These readings explore the infamous dispute between James Mill and Thomas Macaulay over Mill’s worst-case model of government (Mill modeled government as akin to a “slave-driver”) and the alleged incongruence of Mill’s worst-case theory of government (human nature is uniformly self-interested) with his advocacy of representative democracy (extension of the suffrage and annual parliaments alike).
Guide to the Readings
Editions used:
- David Hume, Essays Moral, Political, Literary, edited and with a Foreword, Notes, and Glossary by Eugene F. Miller, with an appendix of variant readings from the 1889 edition by T.H. Green and T.H. Grose, revised edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund 1987).
- James Madison, The Federalist (The Gideon Edition), Edited with an Introduction, Reader’s Guide, Constitutional Cross-reference, Index, and Glossary by George W. Carey and James McClellan (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001).
- Liberty and Order: The First American Party Struggle, ed. and with a Preface by Lance Banning (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).
- Geoffrey Brennan, The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10 (The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy) Foreword by Robert D. Tollison (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999).
- Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 1, (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860).
See also in the Online Library of Liberty:
- Collections: 19th Century Utilitarians
For additional reading see:
Session I: Every man a knave
David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political and Literary
James Madison, Federalist
Lance Banning’s Liberty and Order
- Letters from Madison, pages 104-105;
James Mill, Ulitarian Logic and Politics (London: Jack Lively & John Rees, ed., 1820).
- Essay on Government, pp. 55-72
James Mill’s Political Writings, "Reply to Macaulay (1835), pages 304-314
Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, The Reason of Rules
- 4.: Modeling the Individual For Constitutional Analysis, pages 53-64, 67-68, and 73-75
Session II: Government as slave-driver
James Mill, Ulitarian Logic and Politics (London: Jack Lively & John Rees, ed., 1820).
- Essay on Government, pp. 72-95
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 1, (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860).
Session III: Liberty and the ‘lure’ of the off-diagonal
Westminster Review (attributed to T. Perronet Thompson), “Greatest Happiness Principle,” pages 133-149 - [See Utilitarian Logic and Politics, ed. Jack Lively and John Rees]
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 1, (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860).
Session IV: Virtue, Sympathy, and Rules
Westminster Review, “Edinburgh Review and the ‘Greatest Happiness Principle’,” pages 181-191, and 227-245 - [See Utilitarian Logic and Politics, ed. Jack Lively and John Rees]
Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 1, (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860).
Session V: Constitutional Political Economy: Preaching
Geoffrey Brennan and James M. Buchanan, The Reason of Rules
James M. Buchanan’s Choice, Contract, and Constitutions, pages 148-154, and 267-276
Session VI: General Discussion
Reading Lists
- Addison and Smith: Freedom and Responsibility
- American Liberty in Political Documents before 1787
- An Introduction to the Major Writings of Ludwig von Mises
- Banned Books
- British and French Sources of American Constitutionalism
- Burlamaqui, Bayle: Freedom Tolerance, Natural Law
- Cato’s Letters: Liberty and Responsibility
- Cobden: Liberty and Peace
- Constant’s Principles of Politics
- Emerson on Anti-slavery
- Eric Mack, An Introduction to the Political Thought of John Locke
- Gibbon and the Rise of Christianity and Islam
- Homer’s Iliad: Liberty and Responsibility
- Hume, Smith, and Ferguson: Wealth, Commerce, and Corruption
- Hume: History of England
- James Tyrrell on Authority and Liberty
- Jefferson-Hamilton Debate
- John Milton: Liberty in his Prose and Poetry
- Major Political Thinkers: Plato to Mill
- Mandeville: Vice, Virtue and Liberty
- Mill-Macaulay Debate on Government
- Old Testament and English Political Thought
- Political Sermons of the Founding Era
- Readings from the OLL Reader
- Rousseau and Hume: Contrasting Views of Liberty
- Shakespeare and Marlowe: Liberty in Four Plays
- Shakespeare: Liberty and Responsibility
- Socialist Tracts
- Sophocles and Aeschylus: Blood Justice and the Founding of Legal Order
- Tacitus: Liberty and Tyranny in the Annals
- The Ruling Class and the State: An Anthology
- Thomas Paine and American Liberty
- Thucydides: War, Empire, and Liberty