Two Essays on Liberalism and Utopia

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EUI WORKING PAPERS

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3 0001 0036 8760 7 © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research

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DEPARTMENT OF LAW

WP Fa9

EUR

EUI Working Paper LAW No. 98/2

Two Essays on Liberalism and Utopia

Ma s s im o La To r r e

Translated by Iain L. Fraser

BADIA FIESOLANA, SAN DOMENICO (FI)

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No part of this paper may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author.

Badia Fiesolana I - 50016 San Domenico (FI)

Italy © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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I. On Reading John Stuart Mill's Essay "On Libert)’". Liberalism,

Democracy, Anarchism

1. Introductory

In the following pages I intend to present and discuss arguments and theses from John Stuart Mill's well-known essay on liberty (On Liberty, 1859)1. j intend in particular to deal with Mill's ideas regarding the optimum relationship between society and individual and between political organization and citizen. In doing so I shall not confine myself to expounding the British philosopher's thought. I shall also, briefly, compare the liberal State model advocated by Mill with the lines of development of the contemporary democratic State, and specifically with some trends evident in Italy in the last fifty years. I shall then discuss and criticize the very widespread interpretation that the freedom advocated by liberal political theory is exclusively "negative" freedom. In conclusion, I shall offer a hypothesis on the theoretical roots of Mill's liberalism and its influence on other later political doctrines. I shall then put forward the thesis of a link between liberal thought and anarchism, meaning by the latter term not only an "ideal type" of attitude by the individual towards State and society, but also a historically existing political philosophy2. Such a connection can in my view be traced in the ideas Mill sets out in the essay under discussion.

2. Individuals’ responsibilities and rights. Government o f the people and defence o f minorities

The themes of Mill's essay on liberty are essentially three in number: a) The question of freedom of thought, linked with the development of the intrinsic potential of the human personality and its knowledge; b) Defence of the individual against possible interference by the State or the collectivity; c) The restructuring of political institutions so as to favour individuals' freedom of thought and action (what since Constant has usually been called "negative

1 For a recent analysis o f this classic o f political philosophy see J. Gray, Mill on Liberty.

A defence, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1983.

2 The latter meaning is the one attributed to "anarchism" by a philosopher like Hoffe: see O. Hoffe, "Political Justice. Outline o f a Philosophical Theory", Archiv fu r Rechts- und

Sozialphilosophie, 1985, 2, p. 146 ff, and O. Hoffe, Politische Justiz

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the administration of the common weal ("positive freedom").

Mill’s chief aim is quite clear from the very first pages of his book. He wants to trace out a zone of inviolability of the human person, the "sacred precinct" (as he calls it) within which the collectivity and society's institutional apparatus ought not to intrude at all.

Before going on it is perhaps best to note one specification made by Mill himself. The object of the arguments in On Liberty is not so-called free will (which Mill, as we know, denies^), an essentially theoretical argument with implications of a metaphysical nature. The book's main theme is instead political and social liberty, that is, an eminently practical theme. The liberty that interests our author in the essay we are discussing is not so much that of the human being in relation to God and the laws of the universe, as the citizen's liberty in relation to the community and its institutions, or "the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual"^.

There are two principles constituting the justificatory foundation for Mill's political philosophy. The first is that the individual is not responsible vis-à-vis society as regards actions that do not bring other interests into play than the agent's, that is, others' interests. The second is that as regards actions damaging to others' interests (those constituting damage or a threat of damage to another), the individual is fully responsible to society. In this case, the subject may be exposed to both social and legal penalties where society considers that either (or both) are necessary to its defence^.

In all matters regarding the individual's relations with other human subjects, he is according to Mill responsible towards those whose interests are at stake, and if necessary towards society as protector of such interests. However, he maintains, there is a sphere of action in which society, as an entity distinct from the individuals making it up, has only an indirect interest. This sphere is the area of a person's life and conduct that concerns only himself, or, where it concerns others too, happens with the free, voluntary consent of the latter.

3 See J.S. Mill, A System o f Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive Being a Connected View

o f the Principle o f Evidence and the Methods o f Scientific Investigation, Longmans, Green

and Co., London 1884, Book III, ch. V, § II, p. 232 ff.

4 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, edited with an introduction by G. Himmelfarb, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1976, p. 59.

5 See J.S. Mill, op.ult.cit., p. 163.

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This sphere - according to Mill - constitutes the area of human freedom. In the first place it includes the internal forum of the conscience, hence implying freedom of conscience in the fullest sense, as freedom to think and feel, as absolute freedom of opinion on every topic, whether practical or speculative, scientific, ethical or theological. Note that for Mill the freedom to express one's own opinions and make them public is a direct consequence of the principle of freedom of conscience.

He states in so many words that the freedom to express one's own opinion is nothing but freedom of thought in action, that is, the practical exercise of that freedom. From freedom of thought, writes Mill, "it is impossible to separate the cognate liberty of speaking and of writing"^. As we can see, Mill is very far from the conservative, legalistic liberalism that interprets freedom of conscience restrictively as solely freedom of thought, which influenced especially the legal systems of liberal States in the 19th Century.

The sphere of human freedom secondly includes, according to the British author, the freedom of tastes and inclinations, that is, the freedom to plan one's own life in conformity with one's character and one's aspirations, to do what one prefers in relation to one's own life style. This freedom too is affirmed in absolute terms, at least as long as it does not cause harm to another. Mill thus regards as unjustified any intervention by others to limit this freedom where it does not harm another's material interests, even should the other regard that behaviour or that lifestyle as stupid, perverse or wrong.

Thirdly, from the freedom of conscience and of taste recognized to the individual, Mill derives freedom to enter into relation with other individuals, and equally freedom to associate for any purpose not involving harm to others, within the limits set out above and on the assumption that the persons associating are not constrained to do so or deceived in any way. On this view, the freedom of thought and of its expression, freedom of behaviour and freedom of association are three pillars of what the British philosopher rhetorically defines as "the sacred precinct" of individuality.

To guarantee that these three fundamental freedoms are actually maintained, the most urgent question is to determine and institutionally set limits on the enormous power of the State, of any State, irrespective of the colour of its flag. Another very important point related with the first is finding a balance of two aspects: (a) on the one hand, between social justice and individual freedom, between society's needs and the value of independence, or to use

6 Ibid., p. 74, See also p. 119.

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terminology in vogue today among English-speaking philosophers, "between utility and rights"?, and (b) on the other, between the will of the majority and that of minorities^.

The British philosopher conceives of individual rights in two chief senses: on the one hand as affirmation of the individual's own status, distinct from society; on the other, as protection offered the individual against possible — and indeed likely (as Mill accepts the pessimism of liberal thought as to the nature of political power) - infringements by government, and by society as a whole too, on to the area where the free activity of individuals takes place. Mill undeservedly affirms the value of human rights, reworking in so doing the utilitarian ethics he had borrowed from Bentham. The individualistic inspiration of Mill's thought has repercussions on his interpretation of utilitarian philosophy, with very noteworthy effects. Mill's utilitarianism, as Hart writes, "retained only the letter, while changing the spirit, of the original utilitarian doctrine in many important respects"^.

Mill tempers the utilitarian principle of the "greatest happiness of the greatest number" with a recognition of some inalienable rights of man. In his

? See H.L.A. Hart, "Between Utility and Rights", Columbia Law Review, 1979, in H.L.A. Hart, Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, Clarendon, Oxford 1983. On this theme see also Utility and Rights, edited by R.G. Frey, Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1985.

8 As regards the question o f limits on the powers o f the modem State, consider the thought o f Ronald Dworkin, in particular his best-known work Taking Rights Seriously. New

Impression with a Reply to Critics, Duckworth, London, 1978. On the search for a balance

between individual freedom and social justice, the necessary reference is to the comparison between John Rawls's Theory o f Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge/Mass. 1971) and Anarchy. State and Utopia o f Robert Nozick's (Basic Books, New York 1974). For the contemporary debate on human rights too, Mill is a constant reference point; cf. e.g. D.N. MacCormick, Legal Rights and Social Democracy. Essays in Legal and Political Philosophy, 2nd ed., Clarendon, Oxford 1984, p. 23 ff. Also in a Millian perspective is the essay by E. Pattaro, "On Rights and Duties: Notes for a Normative Ethics", Archiv fu r Rechts- und

Sozialphilosophie, 1986, 1. p. 67 ff. Cf. also E. Pattaro, "Individuo, libertà, stato", Nuova civiltà delle macchine, *primavera 1983, p. 21 ff.

9 H.L.A. Hart, "Utilitarianism and Natural Rights", Tulane Law Review, 1979, in H.L.A. Hart, Essays in Jurisprudence and Philosophy, cit. p. 183. An opposite opinion seems to be held by Norberto Bobbio, who stresses the continuity between Bentham's rigorous utilitarianism and Mill's philosophy: cf. N. Bobbio, Liberalismo e democrazia, Angeli, Milan 1985, pp. 45-46. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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well-known essay Utilitarianism (1863), Mill states that "justice implies something which it is not only right to do, and wrong not to do, but which some individual person can claim from us as his moral right" 10. The sphere of the just is here made to coincide with that of the rights of the person. Respect for moral rights is then considered as the highest expression of general utility. In fact, writes Mill, justice "is a name for certain moral requirements, which, regarded collectively, stand higher in the scale of social utility"' ' . And in his essay on liberty Mill maintains that the utility in question as the ultimate criterion of moral judgement is "utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being" 12.

The rights of man are construed by Mill as a special type of utility which, as Hart notes, will in the event of a clash take precedence over utility conceived as the greatest good of the greatest n u m b er^. Further, justice, according to Mill, consists in recognizing the moral rights due to each person, irrespective of whether these rights are attributed by law or by the praxis of a given society 14.

Starting from the unreserved affirmation of the rights of man 15, Mill stresses the possibility of an authoritarian involution of the majority principle and the concept of popular sovereignty. As we know, many theoreticians of

10 j.s . Mill, "Utilitarianism", in J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Considerations

on Representative Government, edited by H.B. Acton, J.M. Dent & Sons-E.P. Dutton,

London-New York 1977, pp. 46-47. 11 Ibid., p. 59.

12 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 70. 13 Cf. H.L.A. Hart, op. ult.cit., pp. 188-191.

14 Mill also, however, maintains that the sense of justice in men is an effect o f the conditioning and repressive work o f law. Positive morals would thus derive historically from positive law. Equally, the idea o f the fundamental rights o f man, that is, rights preexisting the positive legal order, would originate in the concept o f subjective right conferred by law. "The just rights o f man mean the rights that the law gave him; a just man was one who had never broken, nor intended to break, the legal rights of other individuals, such as ownership. The notion o f a higher justice to which the laws themselves might be traced back and by which conscience would be bound without any positive prescription o f law, constitutes a later extension o f the idea suggested by legal justice and follows the analogy o f it, keeping a parallel direction to it through all the nuances and varieties o f feeling, and borrowing from it almost all its terminology. The very words Justus and justitia derive from jus, law" (J.S. Mill, Three

Essays on Religion, ed. by J.M. Robson, University o f Toronto 1969, p. 396).

Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 76.

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democracy, starting from Rousseau, hold that where the organs of the State are an expression of the popular will (or of the "vanguard of the working class", in the organicist version of the theory of popular representation offered by Marxism), the power of government exercised by those organs (or that "vanguard") cannot be a source of abuses nor be used to the detriment of the interests of the people (or the "working class"). As Gyorgy Konrad wrote in connection with the so-called "revolutionary vanguard", developing considerations that can equally be applied to the political class in democratic systems, "the professional revolutionaries, and later the party bureaucrats, are the disseminators and the victims of the illusion that they play their part in representation of others, symbolize others and thus make their direct participation in power superfluous. They want to suggest they represent a powerful impersonal dignity higher than themselves" 16.

In this sort of vision of democracy, human rights (as a guarantee given to the individual against the excessive power of the State) lose all their meaning and their very reason for existing, namely the limitation of state power. This is because there is a prior presumption of equivalence between liberty of the people and the popular will, that is, liberty has been understood wholly as positive freedom, freedom to take part in running society (and the State), and not at all as negative freedom, that is, freedom to stay outside the commands or intervention of society (or the State). The consequent assumption is the equivalence of the popular will with the will of the institution (whether social or governmental). If the government's will is equivalent to the popular will and ends by coinciding with it, if the government can then identify itself with the people itself, it must be concluded, considering that a subject (the people) cannot "oppress itself', that democratic government cannot, whether logically or practically, be despotic.

The nation does not need to be protected against its own will, say some theoreticians of democracy, according to Mill 17. There can be no tyranny over oneself, they affirm. Let the rulers be effectually responsible to the nation, they continue, and it can afford to trust them with power of which it can itself dictate the use to be made. It is against this sort of argument and this sort of theoretical attitude that Mill's critique is particularly directed. "This mode of thought," he writes, "or rather perhaps of feeling, was common among the last generation of

1^ G. Konrad, Antipolitik. Mitteleuropdische Meditationen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1985, p. 219.

17 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 61 ff.

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European liberalism, in the Continental section of which it still apparently prédominantes" 18.

According to some liberal theorists (among them one might mention James Mill, John Stuart Mill's father), the power of the nation's representatives was nothing but the power of the nation itself concentrated in a few hands in order to render its exercise effective. John Stuart Mill's reply to this interpretation of liberalism is a curt one. The realization of the people's will, writes the British philosopher, does not guarantee individuals a sphere of liberty, for two reasons: (a) first, because the "people" who exercise the power are not always the same "people" as the power is exercised over and (b) secondly, because the people may desire to oppress a part of their number 19 Accordingly, in his view, limiting government's power over individuals is no less important where the holders of power are periodically made responsible before the community through electoral verification of their mandate. According to Mill, as we have said, the State, and not just the State but society too as an entity distinct from individuals, imply, from the mere fact of existing, a threat to the liberty of men. The topicality of this threat is underlined by H.L.A. Hart, who recalls Mill's warning as follows: "It seems fatally easy to believe that loyalty to democratic principles implies acceptance of what may be defined as moral populism: the opinion that the majority has a moral right to dictate how everyone ought to live. This is a flaw in democracy that still threatens individual freedom"20.

In Mill's thought as expressed in On Liberty, it is not just the State as coercive institutional apparatus that constitutes a constant danger to individual freedom, as is the case in the liberal tradition (recall, say, the first page of Paine's Common Sense)21. For Mill the community too, as a hypostatized entity above any possibility of action or check by individuals, and society as the locus of general interest also constitute a source of danger to individuals' freedoms. That is why he takes his distance from the positions of August Comte, though he had been very close to him, influenced in particular in A System o f Logic ( 1843)

1® Ibid., p. 61.

'9 Cf. ibid., p. 62. In this connection, for a comparison between Mill's thought and Rousseau's, cf. A. Ryan, "Mill and Rousseau: Utility and Rights", in Democratic Theory and

Practice, edited by G. Duncan, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1983, p. 39 ff.

20 H.L.A. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, p. 79.

21 Cf. T. Paine, Common Sense, edited with an introduction by I. Kramnick, Penguin, Harmondsworth 1983, p. 65. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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by his positivist philosophy . Mill departs from Comte's theories, stating explicit dissent from them, when the French scholar advocates a communitarian social system to which the individual would be totally subordinated, the communauté against which so much of Proudhon's critique was exercised. Mill sharply differs with Comte, "whose social system, as unfolded in his Système de Politique

Positive, aims at establishing (though by moral more than by legal appliances) a

despotism of society over the individual, surpassing anything contemplated in the political ideal of the most rigid disciplinarian among the ancient philosophers'^. The book - writes Mill elsewhere about the Système de

politique positive - "is a monumental warning to those who think about society

and about politics of what can happen once men lose sight in their speculations of the value of freedom and of individuality"22.

The government of a society, warns Mill, constitutes a power already enormous in itself, because it is convenient to load it with further powers. Not just government understood as the issuing of norms by a restricted group of individuals, but the social dimension as such, if hypostatized, if understood as a norm issued (consciently or unconsciently) even by all those associated, but then taken out of discussion and modification by them, is a source of oppression and a manifestation of political domination, of "despotism".

3. The question o f the delimitation ofpolitical power

There are three objections the British philosopher raises against any form of government interference that does not involve infringements of individual

liberty24. The latter are already rejected a priori as absolutely unacceptable,

22 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 73. Mill's essay on Liberty, notes Giovanni Sartori, was written not so much to claim "freedom from the State" as "freedom from society" (cf. G. Sartori, Democrazia e definizioni, 111 ed., II Mulino, Bologna 1972, p. 85).

23 J.S. Mill, Autobiography, ed. J. Stillinger, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1971, pp. 127-8. Another ground o f dissent between Mill and Comte is that the latter, in the context of an organicist vision o f society, theorizes the natural (and hence in Comte's view also social) inferiority o f woman to man. Mill, a convinced defender o f the cause o f female emancipation (to which he dedicated one o f his most celebrated essays, The Subjection o f Women, 1869), could not but rise up against this position o f Comte's. The question o f women's oppression is dealt with, though rather marginally, in On Liberty too: cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 175.

24 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 180 ff.

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except for a few cases mentioned earlier (which can be reduced to the need accepted by Mill for a guarantee of the physical safety of society's members). Mill calls the State's action not just illicit when it means restricting individuals' freedom but also harmful even where it does not obstruct but even encourages the movement of individuals. State action is regarded as harmful on this view both when it attacks or restricts negative freedom and when it tends to substitute itself for the positive freedom of individuals by replacing it or manipulating it. This interfering action of the State is regarded as fatal above all - and this is the first objection - because when something has to be done it is likely that it will be better done by individuals than by government. This is because it is considered that the best person to direct a matter is someone personally interested in it. This principle implies rejection of interference by the administration or the legislature in the ordinary processes of production and distribution of goods.

The second objection raised by Mill to government intervention in the affairs of society is the following. In many cases, he writes, even if individuals are not able to do that particular thing better than government officers, it is nonetheless desirable for it to be done by them rather than the government, in order to educate and strengthen the faculties and judgement of the individual members of the social body. This is why, for instance, Mill recommends the introduction of popular juries instead of tribunals of professional magistrates, and the development of local institutions instead of central State administration. He attaches to voluntary associationism an importance in some ways equal to that assigned to it by anarchist thinkers like Kropotkin and M alatesta^.

In several quarters it is assumed that one of the distinctive features of liberal political theory is its advocacy of a society in which the only collective body is government, and in which there is no "intermediate society" between government and individuals. This is certainly true of one version of liberalism, but is not a constitutive and accordingly unrenounceable principle of that thought. Mill, staying within the sphere of liberalism and indeed representing one of its best-known versions, favours the creation of the largest possible number of voluntary associations, that is, of "intermediate societies", attributing a fundamental role to them in his conception of the free society.

The revaluation of voluntary associationism seems to me a consistent application of liberal principles. For once government intervention is regarded as in any case suspect and always presaging authoritarian implications, the

25 Cf. e.g. E. Malatesta, L ’anarchia, La Fiaccola, Ragusa 1973, pp. 94 ff.

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spontaneous initiative of individuals and their association become the alternative model for the handling of affairs common to the social group.

Mill is, moreover, not the only one in the area of liberal thinkers to point decisively to voluntary associationism as an alternative to State interference. Humboldt maintained that "the true object of the State must be to lead men, through liberty, to association, whose activity may in thousands of cases replace that of the State"26. Hayek, more recently, writes in this connection: "The harmful idea that all public needs should be met by obligatory organizations and that means that individuals are prepared to devote to public ends should be under government control is completely foreign to the fundamental principles of a free society. The true liberal ought instead to hope for as many as possible of those 'special societies within the State', voluntary organizations between individual and government, which the false individualism of Rousseau and the French revolution sought to suppress"27.

The third and most cogent reason to restrict government interference in affairs of society lies, according to Mill, in the danger of excesses and deviations always inherent in the exercise of political power. Behind this argument one glimpses the typical liberal prejudice that "government is a necessary evil", so that government, albeit accepted as "necessary", still remains by nature an "evil", and is accordingly always looked at with suspicion. It is certain that Mill would have agreed with the formula that "that government governs best that governs least"2^. If government is in itself a danger, Mill argues, the intensity of that danger is directly proportional to the extent of government powers.

Every additional function to those already exercised by government increases, according to Mill, government influence over citizens' fears and hopes, converting them into clients ("hangers-on"29) of government or of some political party seeking to become the government. Mill was writing in the Britain of 1859, where and when the State apparatus, compared to

26 w . Humboldt, Ideen zu einem Versuch die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu

bestimmen, Freies Geistesleben, Stuttgar 1962, p. 108.

27 f.H. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 2, The Mirage o f Social Justice, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1976, pp. 150-151.

28 Cf. H.D. Thoreau, "On the Duty o f Civil Disobedience", in H.D. Thoreau, Walden or

Life in the Woods and On the Duty o f Civil Disobedience, Harper & Row, New York 1965, p.

251.

29 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 182.

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contemporary ones, was but a little thing. Consider only the extremely small number of ministers then making up the British government, and European governments in general. Comparing that position, in Britain in 1859, with ours, in Italy especially in the 1980s, one can see how well-founded were the fears Mill manifested in the middle of the last century.

The corruption of our society - which comes not just from the truly formidable spread of such crimes as undue appropriation and embezzlement of public funds, but also and especially from the desire, today cherished by all, to live on hand-outs from the treasury, from public money - points to how those who used to be proudly called "citizens" have been reduced to "clients" (in the sense the Romans gave the word) or hangers-on-^*. As Mill had feared, the growth in the size of the State is a profoundly anti educational factor for the custom and capacity of the individual. The expansion of political power engenders the corruption, first of itself beyond any limit, and then of the whole social fabric. This in turn reproduces the corruption and transmits it back to the political body. "In fact", as a well-known political commentator has written in connection with Italy's position in the 1980s, "even the 'low' is always linked to the high' because it in turn comes into the political oligarchy that moves everything, since everything or almost everything is entrusted to the 'consultation of the political forces': the life of the neighbourhood and the fate of the government, legislative solutions or the saving of industries, the distribution of posts according to party affiliation, the very fate and the respectability of persons"^ 1.

Let us run through Mill's arguments in On Liberty once again, and we shall realize the perverse nature of contemporary democratic States, as well as of the vast, profound process of statalization that has come about in the century-plus

-0 In this connection Nicola Matteucci speaks of the disappearance o f the "citizen as bearer o f a general will, that o f the civitas" (N. Matteucci, "Individuo, società, stato", Nuova

civiltà delle macchine, Spring 1983, p. 19).

3 * A. Cavallari, "L'Italia che ho visto in quei tre anni", in La Repubblica o f 5 October 1984. In this connection, cf. M. D'Antonio, La costituzione di carta, II ed., Mondadori, Milan 1978, p. 160 fif. On the nature o f the contemporary Italian as "client", there are effective pages in I. Silone, Uscita di sicurezza, Mondadori, Milan 1980, pp. 168-174. On the recent configuration o f political relationships as "patron/client" relations, which is a further sign o f the current process o f privatization and feudalization o f the public sphere in the Western countries and especially Italy, cf. N. Bobbio, "La crisi della democrazia e la lezione dei classici”, in Aa. Vv. Crisi della democrazia e neocontrattualismo, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1984, pp. 25-27.

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since the first edition of the British philosopher's book. If the roads, the railways, the banks, the associations, the universities and public welfare were all branches of the government; if, further, the local institutions with all their powers became part of the central administration; if the employees of all these bodies were appointed and paid by the government and expected improvement in their standard of living from the government; then, concludes Mill, not all the freedom of the press and popular condition of the legislature would be enough to make such a country a free nation except in name32.

The danger would be still greater, he adds, the more scientifically the administrative machine were designed, and the more effective were the ways for that administration to secure able, qualified personnel. If every sector of the administration of society requiring the collaboration of great efforts were in the hands of government, and if government offices were filled by the ablest men, Mill held that the whole culture and intelligence of the country would end by becoming concentrated in an enormous bureaucracy, which the rest of the community would be compelled to approach for everything.

Mill is very far from the conceptions that see politics (and law) as "social technology". I do not believe Mill shared the theses in this connection of, say, Hans Kelsen or Hans Albert, who both still relate themselves to liberal democratic thought. An instrumentalist conception of politics and law, seen as

instruments of "social engineering" contrasts, as Isaiah Berlin notes, with the

humanism that inspires liberal thinking^ at least from Kant onwards. An instrumentalist conception of politics clashes with the assignment to the human subject of an absolute value, so that it must always, according to Kant's famous maxim34; be treated as an end and never as a means. This conception presupposes an anthropology for which man acts essentially because of external stimuli and imitation. This is not John Stuart Mill's anthropology. "He who lets the world," he writes, "or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation"^. But human nature, according to Mill, is quite different from the ape's. "Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work

32 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 182.

33 Cf. I. Berlin, "Two Concepts o f Liberty", in Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford U. Press, Oxford 1969, p. 137.

34 Cf. I. Kant, Grundlegund zur metaphysik der Sitten, (1785) in Kants Werke, Voi. 4, ed. by Akademie-Textausgabe, Walter der Gruyter & Co, Berlin 1968, p. 429.

33 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 123.

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prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing"36. One might perhaps put forward the hypothesis that Mill sets at the foundations of politics not so much a rationality of instrumental type (centred on the means-end relationship) as a "communicative" or "discursive" rationality (based on the parties' equal possibility of making themselves understood) close to the type theorized in our days by Karl-Otto Apel and Jurgen Habermas-^.

As we have seen, reading Mill makes plain to us the enormous distance that separates our societies from the liberal ones of last century, as far as the relation between State and individual goes. Mill hoped that society's affairs would continue to be regulated outside State intervention, and that the most able would not employ their talents on the staffs of political administrations. This hope fitted in with the widespread feeling in nineteenth century's civil society that public employment was inferior in rank to private activity. "There is not a young man of talent who studies law to enter an 'administration'; all aspire to advocacy, to business, to political life. There is no able engineering student who does not aspire to industry or to an independent career. Into "Public Works", the "State Railways", the "Electricity Boards", go in general the discards, the timid ones who do not dare launch themselves into life, the lads without character or personality, the sloggers, the top of swots, who can conceive no entrance way to life but the holy door the exam ination"^. That could still be written by a liberal like Armando Zanetti in 1937. Who could repeat his words today, in a society like the Italian where public employment is the main (often the only) chance for work, and has become the highest aspiration of the able and less able alike?

4. Political organization in a free society. Negative freedom and positive freedom

What is the political organization that best fits the ideal of a free society? Mill answers this question by referring to his main epistemological thesis, which

36 Ibid. Cf. also J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 121. On humanist anthropology, cf. also B. Russell in collaboration with D. Russell, The Prospects o f Industrial Civilization. The Century Company, New York - London 1923, pp. 274-5.

37 For a first contact with these themes see Rationalitdt,. Philosophische Beitrage, ed. by H. Schnadelbach, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1984, passim.

38 a. Zanetti, Il nemico, III ed., La Fiaccola, Ragusa 1981, p. 88.

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may be summarized in the assertion, many years before Karl Popper or Hans Albert, of the fallibility of knowledge.

From the finding of the "weakness" of man's cognitive faculties John Stuart Mill derives the need, in order to reach an acceptable degree of likely certitude of knowledge, to proceed through manifold, diverse attempts and to the formulation of many conflicting hypotheses. Mill here takes up an idea already present in embryo in John Milton's Aeropagitica 39; which was already circulating in Enlightenment thought. The idea had during the French Revolution found a rather effective summing up in the motto that sometimes, on revolutionary posters, accompanied the call to take part in an assembly: Du

choque des idées jaillit la lumière (from the clash of ideas springs light)40.

With this thesis, of pluralism as the foundation of knowledge, Mill justifies, in the second chapter of On Liberty, the claim of freedom of thought^ 1.

Mill uses four arguments to "justify" freedom of opinion and expression, (a) An opinion may always be true, considering that we humans do not have an absolute parameter of truth. Compelling it to silence would mean assuming our own infallibility^. (b) Even if an opinion is false it may still contain a portion of truth. And since the prevailing opinion never or very rarely gives us the whole truth on any matter, the possibility of obtaining the remaining portion of truth can come only from comparing the prevailing opinion with other, dissenting ones, (c) Even accepting that the dominant opinion expresses the whole truth on some matter, it is likely that it is experienced by those who assert it as a prejudice of which they understand neither the scope nor the rational 39 * * 42

39 j. Milton, "Areopagitica. A Speech for the Liberty o f Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament o f England", in J. Milton, Prose Writings, with an introduction by K.M. Burton, Everyman's Library, London/New York 1974, p. 177.

4b Carlo Cattaneo paraphrases this motto when he writes that it is "from the perpetual attrition o f ideas that still today the flame o f European genius is lit" (C. Cattaneo, Scritti

letterari, Le Monnier, Firenze 1925, p. 292).

4 ' On the connection between growth o f knowledge and freedom o f opinion, cf. G. Giorello. M. Mondadori, Prefazione, in J.S. Mill, Saggio sulla libertà, It. translation by S. Magistretti, Il saggiatore, Milan 1981.

42 A similar argument is used by Milton in "Areopagitica", cit. p. 160. The assertion of individual freedom as a "deduction" from the assumption o f the "fallibility" of human knowledge is a central thesis in W. Godwin's Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its

Influence on Modem Morals and Happiness, ed. I. Kramnick, Penguin, Harmondsworth

1976, p. 198 ff. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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foundations, unless challenges to that tmth compel its upholders to enquire into its meaning and its scientific foundation, (d) Finally, a true but undisputed dominant opinion runs the risk of being transformed into a dogma, into mere profession of faith, unable to promote the further development of knowledge, which is possible only through the non-conformist exercise of reason and the free unfolding of personal experience4^.

Through the thesis of the fallibility of human knowledge John Stuart Mill also "justifies" freedom of action43 44 *. "Mill's argument," writes a scholar of that philosopher's thought, "for freedom of action, the greatest possible expression of individuality, was exactly parallel to his argument for freedom of discussion. Just as he assumed that truth would emerge from liberty, so he assumed that every sort of good, the fullest development of the individual, virtue, vigour and even genius would emerge from the cultivation of individuality"4^.

Similarly, Mill constructs his model of democracy on the need for pluralism of knowledge and experience. Since the operations of government, he writes, tend to be everywhere the same, and since on the contrary, as far as individuals and voluntary associations are concerned, there is a great variety of experiences and diversity of experimentation, all the political organization of a country can usefully do is first and foremost to act as a central office collecting and then disseminating the knowledge resulting from the manifold experiences of individuals and groups. This is a conception of the central political body that much recalls the "statistical commission" which in the internationalists'

43 This argument o f Mill's also has its counterpart in Milton's "Areopagitica", cit., p. 172. 44 It is on such fallibility, pushed to the extreme o f cognitive relativism and so-called "methodological anarchism" that Paul K. Feyerabend founds his political philosophy. He holds that "a free society is a relativist society" (P.K. Feyerabend, Erkenntnis fu r freie Menschen.

Verdndesrte Ausgabe, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a. M. 1989, p. 38. Against this see P. Strasser, "1st

eine freie Gesellschaft eine relativistische Gesellschaft?", Grazer Philosophische Studien, 1980, p. 141 ff. It is on the fallibility o f human reason that Hans Albert's political philosophy too is grounded: cf. H. Albert, "Regole metodologiche e regole democratiche”, Biblioteca della

libertà, 1986, n. 92, p. 63 ff. There is a recurrent temptation for political philosophers to base

their normative statements on some theory o f knowledge: for an attempt attempt in this direction cfr. for instance M. Zirk Sadowski, "Democracy as Hermeneutics", Archiv Jur

Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, 1985, 2, p. 159 ff.

45 G. Himmelfarb, Introduction, in J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., pp. 32-33.

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programme of social reorganization was conceived of as an alternative to the central administration of the S ta te d

Mill holds that, since it is not given to us to know a priori what knowledge is most certain, what experience most fruitful, it is needful to let as much knowledge and experience as possible be confronted so as to establish which is the most fortunate. What is true in the sphere of knowledge is still more so in the sphere of social practice^ There, according to Mill, the State's task ought to be to allow every experiment in social organization and practice to profit from the experience of others, instead of not tolerating any activities but those emanating from its own agency. In Mill's view, the practical principle that ought to inspire the political organization of a free society is, accordingly, that of the greatest dissemination of political power compatible with efficiency, and at the same time the greatest possible centralization and most widespread distribution of information from centre to periphery^.

To understand the nature of the political organization hoped for by Mill better, we must turn to the conception he has of a free people. What according to Mill is the anthropological type of the free citizen? Mill establishes a connection between advanced civilization and the prevalence of an "insurrectionary spirit"^?. If the people of a country, writes the British philosopher, or a large part of them is able (he cites the French as example) to improvise and carry through effective plans of action in an insurrection; if a people (and he cites the Americans) is capable of carrying on the administration of public affairs without intervention by government and with sufficient 46 47 48 49

46 Cf. for instance J. Guillaume, Idées sur Torganisation sociale, Courvoisier, La-Chaux- de-Fonds 1876.

47 Cognitive relativism and the pluralism o f knowledge and experimentation that derives from it are likewise the "justification" adopted by Mill for the defence of female emancipation and o f a system o f equality between the sexes. Cf. J.S. Mill, "The Subjection o f Women", in J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Representative Government, The Subjection o f Women, with an introduction by G. Fawcett, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1954, p. 431.

48 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 185. On the compatibility between centralization and democracy seen as society's self-organization, cf. C. Castoriadis, "Democrazia e centralizzazione", in Dissenso e democrazia nei paesi dell'Est., ed. by P. Nadin, Vallecchi, Firenze 1980, p. 41 ff.

49 Cf. J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 183. Mill's "insurrectionalism" is referred to by Carlo Rosselli in his reinterpretation o f liberalism; cf. C. Rosselli, Socialismo liberale, J. Rosselli, Einaudi, Turin, 1979, p. 103. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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intelligence; then that people can be called free. That is the model of a free people: a people capable of defending itself militarily and administrating itself economically by itself, without the help (or the encumbrance) of government. Such a people will be hard to enslave, for two reasons: a) because it is able to fight effectively against any armed threat from the State; b) because it is capable of running social and economic activities and taking the administration of public affairs into its own hands.

In this connection, one commonplace about liberal political thought should be disputed. From many quarters, but especially from the Marxist side, the anthropological type advocated by liberal political theory has been portrayed as that of the bourgeois, the shopkeeper, who in exchange for the assured safety of his deals and more generally his private sphere, yields to others the exercise of political power^O. This image of the homo liberalis is drawn more or less from the model of the renaissance burgess in the Italian communes, willingly entrusting to mercenaries the burdensome defence of his city, and progressively cutting back his interests from public life to economic ones, thus accelerating the decline of the communes and the rise of rulers.

This interpretation of the type of man advocated by liberalism takes off from Benjamin Constant's famous distinction between positive freedom (the "freedom of the ancients") and negative freedom (the "freedom of the modems"). Constant, as we know, takes the side of negative freedom, that is, freedom consisting not in participation in political power but in abstention by power from all arbitrary invasion of the citizen's private sphere, and the defence of the latter against that possibility (the arbitrary action of political power). In this position some have seen the exaltation of "private" egoism and the recommendation to the individual to abstain from all public activity, an invitation to doff the garb of "citizen" for the more comfortable one of "owner" or "father"^ 1 .1 do not intend within the limits of this article to go into the merits of this interpretation; to do so would call for an accurate analysis of Constant's 50 51

50 For an interpretation o f this type, see, among may others, D. Neri, Le libertà

dell'uomo, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1980, pp. 75-76.

5 1 A contrary opinion comes from Mauro Barberis, who concludes a study on Constant’s thought thus: "This being the case, we must eliminate from this sort o f image o f liberalism some elements we have not found in Constant's work: classism, for instance, or reflex pro ownership positions, or antidemocratic prejudice, or moderatism, or conservatism" (M. Barberis, Il liberalismo empirico di Benjamin Constant. Saggio di storiografia analitica, Ecig, Genova 1984, p. 199; emphasis in originai).

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texts, which would take us out of the topic (Mill's thought on liberty) being dealt with here. I wish nonetheless to assert that even if Constant preached political abstentionism in the sense specified above (which I strongly doubt), the "abstentionist" position could not be attributed to the whole of liberal thought. Among bars to such attribution are Mill's ideas in this connection.

On the other hand, it is hard to see why the assertion of so-called negative freedom has to clash with recognition of "positive" freedom. In this connection I share Claude Lefort’s opinion that "the declaration that freedom consists in being able to do everything that does not harm others does not imply the individual's his own sphere of activity. The negative formula: 'does not harm...' at which Marx stops is inseparable from the positive form: 'to do everything that...'52. One might venture to put forward the following thesis. Negative freedom is a necessary, though not sufficient, conditio sine qua non, but not

conditio per quam, of positive freedom. To think of positive freedom in a

situation where negative freedom is not guaranteed is, in my opinion, an absurdity. To be able to participate freely in running public affairs - and I stress "freely", since mere participation does not yet give us positive freedom - it is above all needful to be able to move freely, and thus not to be in a state of captivity, and then to be able to be at home without the fear of irruption by somebody or other, especially by the forces that ought to guard the safety of citizens, and to be able to go outdoors without the threat of attack. Further, to the same end (free political participation, or positive freedom), it is necessary to be able to discuss freely, and to do that it is necessary to be able to meet freely and exchange opinions, and therefore to be able to send and receive information without its being intercepted or censured, and finally to be able to make one's own ideas public (by using the media or through meetings in public places).

Andrea Caffi has written some simple but essential words on liberty. "Wherever there is life in common (and where is there no life in common with others?) freedom is my being left in peace as far as possible, so that 1 do not have to rack my brains over the famous choice between "abstract freedom" and "concrete freedom", "formal" democracy and "substantive" democracy. If I am not afraid of being wakened at six in the morning by the NKVD or Gestapo, I am free; otherwise I am not, and that is all there is to it"53. Here Caffi is referring not to the negative/positive freedom pair, but the one of * *

32 C. Lefort, "Les droits de l'homme en question", Revue interdisciplinaire d'études

juridiques, 1984, 13, pp. 28-29.

33 A. Caffi, Critica della violenza, Bompani, Milan 1966, p. 169.

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abstract/concrete freedom with which it is sometimes confused. This second pair (abstract freedom versus concrete freedom) was introduced to political theory by Marxist doctrine. Marxism teaches us that negative freedom is "abstract" freedom, and that "concrete" freedom (which does not consist in positive freedom either, at least in the meaning assigned it by Constant) results from the combination of the collectivization of property and the proletarian dictatorship. Thus, "concrete" freedom resolves into (a) a certain organization of the economy and (b) some form of participation in the political organization of the country, through the organic intermediary of the proletarian vanguard. It may be concluded that in Marxist doctrine political freedom reduces on the one hand to an economic status and on the other to the mobilization of the social body involved (the subject of the "freedom").

One of the most interesting essays in political theory written by John Stuart Mill is the one on Alexis de Tocqueville's La Démocratie en Amérique. In this long essay Mill at a certain point, following Tocqueville's argumentation, tackles the question of political abstentionism and the citizen's withdrawal into the private sphere in democratic societies. "Monsieur de Tocqueville," writes Mill, "is of the opinion that one of the tendencies of a democratic State is to bring it about that everyone in a sense withdraws into himself and concentrates on his own interests, desires and objectives within his own affairs and in his own home"54. For Mill, as for Tocqueville, this tendency is pernicious. "Accordingly, since the State of society is becoming more democratic, it is ever more needful to nourish patriotism55 56 by artificial means; and among these, none is so effective as free institutions, or the broad and frequent involvement of citizens in the running of public affairs"5^. Thus, to avoid just that withdrawing into the private sphere that according to some constitutes the quintessence of liberal thought, Mill, following Tocqueville, recommends the increasingly broad adoption of free institutions, of free political institutions based on the

54 j s Mill, "M. de Tocqueville on Democracy in America”, in J.S. Mill, Dissertations

and Discussions Political, Philosphical, and Historical, vol. 2, 2nd ed., Longmans, Green &

Co., London 1867, p. 46. That the "private" tends to constitute the centre o f gravity of political life in bourgeous society had already been acutely observed by Heinrich Heine: on this see his "Englische Fragmente" (1828) in H. Heine, Reisebilder, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin und Weimar 1983, p. 396 ff; elf. also the famous analysis by H. Arendt, The Human Condition.

55 By patriotism Mill intends to express the sense o f belonging to a community, not some sort o f nationalistic ideology.

56 J.S. Mill, op.ult.cit., pp. 47-48. © The Author(s). European University Institute. version produced by the EUI Library in 2020. Available Open Access on Cadmus, European University Institute Research Repository.

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widespread, spontaneous participation of citizens. These "free institutions" are conceived of by Mill as a corrective to the tendency inherent in democratic societies (here in the sense of mass societies) to isolate the individual from his like, the citizen from the other members of society. Mill assigns these free institutions the function of acting as a school of cooperation and solidarity. "It is not just love of one's country that requires this encouragement, but every feeling that links men to their neighbours and companions whether out of interest or out of sympathy"^.

Yet Mill is, as we have seen above, well aware of the inadequacy of mere participation in political power where this is not accompanied by negative freedom, and indeed of the authoritarian tendencies inherent in participation that fails do take account of the autonomous status of the individual. This does not mean that participation, positive freedom, is in turn neglected. Nor does Mill yield to the typical vice of liberal political theory, limiting the range of action of positive freedom to the political sphere alone. Participation is, according to Mill, not just participation in the life of the political institutions but also in that of the economic institutions, of the factory in the first place. In this connection the British philosopher arrives at the hope for "the association of the workers themselves on a footing of equality, who collectively possess the necessary capital for their operations and work under the directives of managers they themselves elect and may vote out"58. it should further be emphasized that Mill

57 Ibid, p. 48. The best form o f government is, for Mill, that in which "the entire

aggregate o f the community" is invested with sovereign power, that is, is "called on to take an actual part in the government" (J.S. Mill, "Considerations on Representative Government", in J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, ed. H.B. Acton, cit., p. 207. Mill does not restrict the value and operativity of the spirit of cooperation to the political sphere alone. He holds instead that cooperation is beneficial and necessary in the economic sphere too, where it should flank and constrain the opposite principle o f competition (see J.S. Mill, "Civilization", in J.S. Mill, Dissertations and

Discussions Political, Philosophical, and Historical, vol. 1, 2nd ed., Longmans, Green & Co.,

London 1867, p. 189). On the value that Mill attributes to cooperation in the economic sphere, see H. Jacobs, Rechtsphilosophie und Politische Philosophic bei John Stuart Mill, H. Bouvier u. Co. Verlag, Bonn 1965, p. 136 ff.

5% J.S. Mill, Principles o f Political Economy with Some o f Their Applications to Social Philosophy, 7th ed., Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, London 1872, Book IV, Chap. VII,

§ 6, p. 465. The constant concern in J.S. Mill's work to affirm the principle o f self-management is emphasized by A. Ryan, Mill and Rousseau: Utility and Practice, cit., p. 53.

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holds that the principle of "free trade" is not based on the same foundations as those on which, in his view, the principle of individual freedom rests. The doctrine of free trade, he writes, does not imply the principle of individual liberty^. Mill, that is, clearly distinguishes between the doctrine of the free market and liberalism. From this viewpoint it is not Nozick but Rawls who is closer to Mill's political philosophy.

In this connection we have to recall Mill's position regarding hereditary succession. The British philosopher opposes both the principle concentrating inheritance in the hands of the firstborn and that of the obligatory division of the hereditary patrimony in equal portions among the descendants, the system called

partage fo r c e d . The reasons Mill adduces both against the principle of

primogeniture and against the system of partage force are indicative of the aspiration to full social justice that pervades all his thought.

The principle of primogeniture is challenged because it leads to the concentration of wealth. For Mill, "the distribution of wealth is desirable, not its concentration" and "the healthiest state of society is not that in which immense fortunes are possessed by few and coveted by many, but that in which the greatest possible number possesses and is content with moderate revenues that all may hope to attain"^'. The principle of the forced division of an inheritance in equal proportions among the descendants is challenged by Mill above all because it leads to control by the State over the owners' activities so as to protect the future, possible, rights of heirs. Mill further stresses that division by equal proportions, far from favouring equality among the heirs, may benefit the most able (over the least able) and those already with means to provide for then- subsistence (over those without such means). The less able and less well off ought instead, on a principle of justice - maintains Mill - to get a bigger inheritance portion than that going to the most able and most well off.

59 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit., p. 164. That Mill did not see liberalism as a doctrine of liberty to be applied only to the privileged classes and within the sphere of movement o f the bourgeoisie has been grasped by, among others, Dino Coffancesco: see D. Coffancesco, "J.S. Mill e Tocqueville nell'ottocento liberale", in J.S. Mill, Sulla "Democrazia in America" in

Tocqueville, tr. ed. by D. Coffancesco, Guida, Napoli 1971, p. 86.

60 On Mill's proposals regarding inheritance, cf. V. Ferrari, Successione per testamento e

trasformazioni sociali, Comunità, Milan 1972, pp. 22-23.

61 J.S. Mill, Principles o f Political Economy with Some o f Their Applications to Social

Philosophy, 7th ed., cit., p. 538.

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Mill's proposal regarding inheritance is therefore as follows. Freedom of testamentary disposal of one’s own goods must be allowed, but with two important limitations, (a) If their are descendants unable to provide for themselves, whose subsistence is therefore a burden on the whole community, these must be given the equivalent of what the State would grant for their subsistence, (b) No one may acquire by inheritance a fortune greater than that needed for moderate independence^. it is clear from this proposal that Mill sees inheritance as a mechanism for fair redistribution of wealth.

5. Liberalism and Anarchism. Historical and theoretical affinities

What, finally, is the core of John Stuart Mill's political thought as expressed in On Liberty? The "grand leading principle" (as Mill calls it, taking up Wilhelm von Humboldt's words) for the philosopher in his essay on liberty is that coercion in all its forms suffocates man's energies and generates all sorts of miseries. What Humboldt writes in this connection is true for Mill, "coercion deadens the strength and excites every selfish desire and the basest artifices of weakness. Coercion may perhaps prevent some wrong, but deprives even the justest actions of beauty. Freedom may perhaps produce some wrong, but gives even vice itself a less ignoble appearance"^. Freedom is defined by Mill as follows: "The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impeach their efforts to obtain it"64. in the condemnation of coercion and the rigorous assertion of liberty as individual autonomy, John Stuart Mill's consistent, radical liberalism arrives, in my views, at the borders of anarchism^.

62 Cf. Ibid. pp. 540-1. On Mill's attitude towards succession cf. also ibid., pp. 140. 63 G. Humboldt, op. cit., pp. 94-95. That Humboldt's condemnation o f coercion is fully shared by Mill is maintained by, among others, H.B. Acton, "Introduction", in J.S. Mill,

Utilitarianism, On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government, ed. H.B.

Action, cit., p. 12.

64 J.S. Mill, On Liberty, cit. p. 72.

65 That the individualistic conception o f society and history is the point at which liberalism and anarchism intersect, or at least come into contact, has been pointed out by N. Bobbio, IIfuturo della democrazia, cit., p. 123.