James Mill says that enfranchisement is very important but compared to modern standards he is extremely restrictive with who is allowed to vote. This was supposedly in order not to duplicate effort in which he believed strongly, however we can view this as something more than pragmatism, Mill wanted to appeal to the elites in society with his work and therefore advocating a full franchise was unlikely to win them over. It is said that his true wish would have been to extend the franchise further but as he left it, only 1/6th of the population were eligible to vote, propertied men over 4O. Women were represented by their fathers and the poor were supposedly represented by the middle class. The downfalls to this method of thinking are immense. Mill appears to be very naïve in his view of human nature because according to his thinking, the middle classes will have common wants and needs as the working class and will consider not only what they want but what the working class wants as well. This is likely to be extremely different with no unity of interests which would then only lead to conflict. Even John Stuart Mill recognises the pitfalls of relying on the good in human nature, when empathising with the uneducated he says “If my own happiness lies in something else, why may I not give that the preference?” (Mill 1968) He realises that self interest in an integral part of being human. A restrictive franchise is also a factor of John Stuart Mill’s thinking as he is a supporter of plural voting based on skill, knowledge and education. J.S Mill believes that this should be a temporary measure as he wanted others to increase their education and competency over time and then plural voting could be scrapped. He called this developmental democracy which would enrich and advance the species. At least he wanted to make people more equal over time, Burke just assumes the working class will always be politically ignorant but if that’s the case then why give them the vote at all, maybe so that it will still seem to them like they have a say in what happens to them, but in reality they cannot demand their representative to say what they want him to say.
John Stuart Mill believed that there were “higher pleasures” and some people were better equipped to know what pleasure is than others. This seems to be the same kind of notion advocated by Edmund Burke, that the elected representative knew better than the people he represents. This seems very much like class rule, with Marx suggesting that the educational elites form a class of their own. If this is true then James Mill’s thinking that people of a lower class can be fairly represented by those in a higher class is simply not true. This can be seen by Mill himself defying his constituency in Bristol when they demanded political reform but due to his conservative leanings and his desire to maintain the status quo, he refused to represent what they wanted. There is now a big question as to how democratic a state can be when a representative listens to the people but then goes by his own judgement because he thinks he knows best. John Stuart Mill has a very arrogant and hypocritical attitude when talking about higher pleasures because he contradicts himself when talking about the “harm principle”. He suggests the government should not intervene in any aspects of life which are self regarding and not hurting other people as this will preserve individuality and diversity. Individuality cannot be preserved if an educated individual is dictating what counts as a so called “worthwhile” pleasure because a member of the working class apparently doesn’t have the educational skill or experience to decide for himself what constitutes a higher pleasure.
The issue of representative accountability is important to consider, “since those who govern will naturally act in the same way as the governed, government must, if its systematic abuse is to be avoided, be directly accountable to an electorate called upon frequently to decide whether their objectives have been met” (Held, 2002) This view is in direct contradiction to John Stuart Mill because he wished for the representatives to be in power for longer in order for there to be greater continuity in policy. However he also wanted to get away from the idea of being able to remove people from power very quickly which had been advocated by his father, James Mill. This form of representation is once again at odds with democracy itself as the clear contradiction exists that if the people are unhappy with the government, it is their right to get rid of them.
Edmund Burke, James Mill and John Stuart Mill all have varying ideas on representation; first is Burke’s belief in trustee representation which is condescending and ultimately betrays the entire point of representation through a belief in a superiority of the educated to know what’s right for everyone. This is mirrored in John Stuart Mill’s belief in the “higher pleasures” principle where the people who choose these higher pleasures are educated elites. James Mill tries to mask his class bias with talk of a larger franchise, but when examined we see that it is restrictive and based on false assumptions of human nature. All three thinkers seem to have missed the point of the masses being represented in Parliament instead of the use of direct democracy in ancient Athenian times. This was supposedly guaranteeing the rights and want of the people even though they were not there themselves however when voting rights are restricted by James Mill to propertied men over 4O, “it excludes from a vote the man of all others whose natural equality stands most in need of protection and defence”. (Paine, 1984) James Mill claimed he believed in greater enfranchisement but he wanted to appeal to the elites in society which is why he wrote of a restricted franchise. This shows just how self interested even the educated classes are and proves that, as James Mill himself suggested, there should be the means to remove the representative from power should they start not doing what they have been put there to do. John Stuart Mill is either too naïve of the motivations of the educated or he deliberately sets out to maintain the status quo in as much as he wants the power to stay in the hands of the rich and educated and out of the hands of the working class despite his apparent utilitarian upbringing. It could just be argued that he is maximising his utilities by acting self interestedly which is why his thoughts on representation aren’t as philanthropic as they may seem at first. In any case, all three men are guilty of elitism. Their ideas may have seemed radical in their own times but they just cover the surface of their elitist views with some thoughts on participation of the masses which wouldn’t give the working classes any power anyway. A stark contrast would be with Rousseau whose “entire political theory hinges on the individual participation of every citizen” (Pateman 1970) This form of representation upholds democracy whereas Burke, Mill and J.S Mill advocate aristocratic rule. Unless you were wealthy and educated, you would’ve had more representation in ancient Greece with their form of direct democracy where your views were actually heard as opposed to being watered down by supposedly more intelligent peers with their own agendas.
