James Mill on Government Power

While Mill avoids the language of natural rights or social contract theory, and uses the utilitarian language of happiness and pain, his view of the origins of government parallels that of John Locke. Mill maintains that nature provides “scanty materials of happiness,” which men desirous of security and survival compete for. If nature were more generous in providing for the desires of all, Mill suggests, disputes over resources and injuries suffered in these altercations would not have occurred. To protect themselves from the predations of others, groups of men first form unions for self-protection and eventually “combine together, and delegate to a small number the power necessary for protecting them all.” Mill emphasizes the importance of property: “The greatest possible happiness of society is … attained by insuring to every man the greatest possible quality of the produce of his labour.” One of the functions of government, Mill maintains, will be “to make that distribution of the scanty materials of happiness which would insure the greatest sum of it in the members of the community taken altogether.” He concludes, “It thus appears, that it is for the sake of property that government exists.” Mill notes that his view “coincides exactly with the doctrine of Locke,” and quotes from Locke’s Second Treatise to prove his point: “The great and chief end of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves

After this brief introduction, Mill then turns to the major focus of this essay: “All the difficult questions of government relate to the means of restraining those, in whose hands are lodged the powers necessary for the protection of all, from making a bad use of it.”