Politics & Power Quote by James Mill

James Mill, the Benthamite reformer and father of John Stuart Mill, worked in a Britain anxious about sedition and revolution yet roiled by demands for representation and press freedom. His terse distinction points to a line he wanted the law and public morals to draw in political speech. Urging people to obstruct the operations of government in detail targets specific acts, officials, or procedures; it is a call to immediate, concrete interference with the machinery of administration. That is not mere opinion but incitement to action, and Mill treats it as akin to conspiring to break the law.

By contrast, exhortations to resist all address government in the abstract. They argue, however unwisely or sweepingly, that authority as such lacks legitimacy. Mill’s utilitarian calculus favors letting such broad advocacy stand. General resistance can be met with counterargument, evidence, and debate; if it persuades the public, that exposes deeper constitutional defects that discussion must remedy. If it fails to persuade, it remains harmless talk. Suppressing abstract dissent only drives opinion underground and deprives society of the corrective power of publicity.

The balance he sketches is pragmatic rather than absolutist. Social order requires that the state be able to execute its lawful functions without being harried at every turn by calls for obstruction. Liberty requires that citizens be able to question the foundations of rule, even to the point of rejecting government altogether, without fear of prosecution so long as they do not incite specific unlawful acts. The semicolon divides two species of political speech: the actionable and the discussable. Mill’s solution anticipates later liberal doctrines that protect advocacy while sanctioning incitement, and it reflects his broader project of making government accountable through open criticism, elections, and institutional checks rather than street-level sabotage.