Topic > Mill and Friedman: Different Only in Details

Political theorists build their ideas on theories of the past. Jon Stuart Mill learned from Jeremy Bentham, the father of utilitarianism. Although he was considered highly revolutionary at the time, Mill drew his ideas from utilitarian thinking. Milton Friedman, one of the most important thinkers of neoliberalism, was no different. Friedman drew heavily on Mill and other classical liberal thinkers when he sought to develop the idea that would address the growth of New Deal policies. Friedman's language differs from Mill's because Friedman lived a century before Mill; However, Friedman's idea does not derive much from Mill's in its basic principle. Friedman and Mill's idea has some differences, although they are relatively minor. The differences stemmed largely from Friedman's adoption of classical liberalism into the modern political and economic landscape. Just as socialists incorporated their utopian ideal of a classless society into their ideas, Friedman incorporated his utopian ideal of natural rights – that everyone is entitled to natural rights – to make his idea of ​​limited government more attractive to those who are disillusioned with the Keynesian New Deal. policies. Since a government has no authority to regulate nature, Friedman argues that laws should protect, not interfere with, the rights of the individual. Friedman's reasoning differs from Mill's, although both share a principle of limited government. In his book On Liberty, Mill relies on utilitarian logic to make his case for limited government. Mill argues that an individual with his own personal interest in an issue can conduct a business better than a government that has no personal interest because an individual is likely to pay more attention to a business than a g... middle of paper .. .Mill and Friedman, despite being a century apart, are remarkably similar in their principles. Both advocate limited government and a competition-based economy. Both believe that competition should be fair and based on rules interpreted and enforced by the government. They believe in the power of government to control the money supply as well as the power to control some monopoly if the resource is essential. Finally, despite their skepticism of paternalistic government, both express their opinion that lunatics and children should be governed paternalistically by the government because they are not fully capable of making responsible decisions. Friedman, while adopting Mill's politics to fit the modern political and economic landscape, differs from Mill largely only in detail and semantics; Friedman retains most of the principles formulated by Mill a century ago.