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JOHN STUART MILL AND THE IRISH LAND QUESTION: AN ILLUSTRATION OF HIS VIEW ON SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 February 2020

Laura Valladão de Mattos
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Abstract

John Stuart Mill’s involvement with the Land Question in Ireland is analyzed from the viewpoint of his theory of institutions. I argue that, for Mill, institutions should promote progress without endangering social order. When referring to economic institutions, “progress” meant, essentially, human improvement, a rise in economic productivity, and the increase of social justice. According to Mill, the cottier system did not fulfill any of these requisites and should be abandoned. Mill also rejected transposing to Ireland the “English model” of capitalist agriculture. This institution could eventually solve the economic problem but involved the unjust eviction of tenants and would not regenerate the Irish character. Given the particularities of Ireland, Mill endorsed peasant property as the most suitable form of land appropriation. It would, at the same time, improve the character of the people, enhance productivity, and increase the social justice of the system. It would also mitigate the conflicts that jeopardized social order.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 43 - 60
Copyright
© The History of Economics Society 2020

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Footnotes

Laura Valladão de Mattos, Department of Economics, University of São Paulo (lauramattos@usp.br). I am grateful to Joe Persky, Philippe Gillig, Ivan Salomão, and the two anonymous reviewers of this journal for their helpful comments on this paper. I would also like to thank Paul Dudenhefer for this excellent revision of the English version of this text. I would like to acknowledge that this study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.

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