On a Contradiction in Mill's Argument for Liberty

Abstract

Mill took very seriously the warning example from China that even a civilised country could stagnate and become a backwater of world development. Although certain sections of Mill's On Liberty have been scrutinised, evaluated and debated with intense care, this, his most fundamental warning to his own society - that it was systematically undermining its own pre-eminence - has stimulated relatively little investigation. This article notes Mill's concern with social stagnation and suggests that, even in terms of his own presentation of the balance of social forces, his proposed countermeasures of ‘eccentricity’ and ‘refusal to bend the knee’ are futile gestures quite insufficient to combat the tendencies he outlined.