Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy

by John Stuart Mill

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Genres: Economics, Politics, Essays, Classics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

88 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1844

About the author

John Stuart Mill, English philosopher, political economist, civil servant and Member of Parliament, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. He was an exponent of utilitarianism, an ethical theory developed by Jeremy Bentham, although his conception of it was very different from Bentham's.

Reviews

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

My ambition is to read everything by J.S. Mill, John Dewey and Thorstein Veblen by 2023.

[May Ling · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is amazing that this piece was written so long ago. I think some of the insights are still prudent today.

First, it is important to note that this piece is one of many that attempt to link politics and economics together. The undercurrent structure of economic policy was far to large of a driver of political bodies to be ignored.

In this regard, he is somewhat brilliant for separating market participants into those that are involved in the production of goods and those that involved in the money side or the allocation of capital. In this regard, he may be a step ahead of those that ONLY his contemporaries that focused on the production/labor value side of life.

I found Mill's description of market forces as inefficient to be as true as ever in light of recent events. He does a fluid job of explaining this.

I also found his idea of the nature of lending to be fantastically insightful. He basically provides a basic discourse on what types of interest rates will exist and why, without trying to force some theory of inflation. In other words, it's lending rates as a function of supply and demand with a risk premium attached to it. This is far better than the monetarists who link every single thing to inflation.

His description of the special case of the banker who prints money is a tell-tale sign of what is going on today with the US banking system.

Still, I can't image that Mills would have suspected the economic systems would have evolved to what they are today.

[Leonardo]

Parafraseando a Nietzsche, el Homo Economicus nace varias veces. Se le adjudica implícitamente a Adam Smith, por supuesto, pero también a Stuart Mill (Cfr. Essays on some unsettled questions of political economy ps 137-8, John W. Parker, London, 1844)

Ensayos sobre Racionalidad en Economía

[Janina]

Une nouvelle performance de l'éditeur suédois, Karl Beijbom, de Beijbom Books : un beau livre de poèmes de Rita Mestokosho, poétesse innue, édités en trois langues :

innu, français et suédois.

[for-much-deliberation ... · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mill's discussions on economic and politics, highlighting such topics as production and on being productive, distribution of goods, demand, supply, value of goods, influence of governments...