Mill’s Exposition of the Ricardian Theories
During a century and a half of alternating fortunes, reputable commentators agreed on just one point: Mill’s Principles contained (but by no means consisted of) a large, systematic, and effective exposition of what he considered the most accomplished achievements of Smith, Malthus, and mostly Ricardo.
In a letter to John Austin written when he was completing the Principles for print, Mill wrote: “I doubt if there will be a single opinion (on pure political economy) in the book, which may not be exhibited as a corollary from his [Ricardo’s] doctrines.” (Mill to John Austin, 22 February 1848, in Mill 1963, XIII: 731). A non-controversial aspect of Mill’s contribution consists therefore in the exceptional literary and logical power of his exposition. He established a standard for economic theory by passing the existing theories through the scrutiny of his logic, his taste for proportion, order, and detail, and his sense of intellectual duty. He borrowed the core of the Ricardian doctrines, incorporating the best of the Malthusian theory of population and the Smithian large view of the division of labour. It is widely agreed that this was Mill’s modest original intention. According to his leading biographer, M.St.J. Packe, “he did not aspire to anything more than a blending and a thorough exposition of already existing treatises” (Packe 1954: 295). In the words of Mitchell, “it was a matter of arranging an ordered exposition of principles which had been formulated by his predecessors” (Mitchell 1967: 559).The precise reasons why Mill set out in fall 1845 to write a treatise of political economy after the great success of his Logic (Mill 1843 [1973]) is partially a matter of speculation. In 1844 he had published a book containing some old essays on political economy (Mill 1844 [1967]) which had remained unpublished for some fourteen years, but at that time he had won his outstanding reputation not as an economist but as a philosopher.
Presumably, the Principles were intended to be a continuation of the Logic (not of the Essays). As Schumpeter (1954: 530) remarked, “The original preface [of the Principles] is worth reading. He might with little change have reprinted the preface to the Logic”. The Principles were then “a natural descent from the theory of knowledge as a whole to a detailed enquiry into the field of human activity” (Packe 1954: 296). This descent took for granted what he already knew - the works of his predecessors. He strongly believed during all his lifetime in a “religion of humanity” in which the ultimate goal of science was to help mankind better its lot, and political economy was central in this effort. The subtitle of the Principles, “with some of their applications to social philosophy”, reflects the fact that he was interested not so much in establishing new principles as in shaping the existing principles to make them consistent with his system of logic and amenable to his social philosophy. There was a “double message” (Mitchell 1967: 560): one concerned pure economic theory, and the other concerned its application to social philosophy, where “social philosophy is the larger, the controlling element in Mill’s mind” (Mitchell 1967: 562).