Mill and the Spirit of Athenian Democracy

John Stuart Mill, like his friend and fellow utilitarian radical George Grote, expresses deep admiration for the Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c. (CW X, XI, XVIII, and XIX). They both argue that the ancient Athenian political system (as they understand it in light of the limited sources of information) provides valuable lessons for the citizens of modern representative democracies. Mill in particular tries to show what a representative democracy would look like if its system of institutions was designed in accord with the spirit of Athens, and he claims that such a well-constructed representative democracy would be the best form of government for any civilized society, that is, any society whose citizens typically are “capable of rational persuasion” through free discussion and debate.

Despite his explicit commitment to representative democracy, scholars have often viewed Mill as a proponent of oligarchy, more specifically, a trained elite with authority to force the popular majority to accept elitist legislation in the pursuit of some putative utilitarian social utopia. Yet he explicitly denies that such a “bureaucratic oligarchy” is the best form of government for any civilized people, and he goes so far as to argue that even a skilled bureaucracy always tends to decay into the routine incompetence and corruption of a “pedantocracy” unless it is subjected to popular criticism and control (CW XIX: 437–40; see also CW XVIII: 305–10).