Blindness to social coercions persisted in the thought of nineteenth-century liberal writers and accounts in no small measure for the failure of liberalism to comprehend the phenomena of "mass societies." The true measure of this is to be found in the political ideas of John Stuart Mill.

Today Mill's fame derives from his impassioned plea for individual freedom and his acute analysis of the social pressures working to destroy variety and spontaneity in human character. As he explained in his Autobiography, the essay On Liberty was an indictment of the "oppressive yoke of uniformity in opinion and practice." And true enough the essay contained many noble passages defending the right of the individual to go his own way despite the offense it might give to the opinions of society. "... The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection ... His own good ... is not a sufficient warrant." Yet there remained a hopelessly unreal quality about Mill's principles of liberty, one which has the effect of reducing them to mere preaching, even if of a highly commendable kind. For when it is asked, how are these principles to be enforced?  Mill could give no answer because his own argument had compromised the integrity of the only means possible, namely government. If society is the enemy of individuality and if, at the same time, the dangerous development of modern democracy is that it makes government the agent of society, it is hardly to be expected that society's agent could intervene to protect the individual from society.

Even more perplexing was the contradictory tendency of Mill to fall back on the very power of society which he had sought to expel in Liberty. The same Mill who had accused Comte of aiming at "a despotism of society over the individual," who had welcomed Tocqueville's profound analysis of social conformity, nevertheless proposed that the tyranny of opinion be invoked in order to promote some of his own pet causes. First, his personal bête-noire, the old problem of overpopulation, could be alleviated, Mill argued, if there were sufficiently intense social disapproval of large families. "Any one who supposes that this state of opinion would not have a great effect on conduct, must be profoundly ignorant of human nature." Secondly, Mill's argument in Representative Government for an "open" rather than a secret ballot was founded on the proposition that voting was a public trust and hence "should be performed under the eye and criticism of the public ..." It is less dangerous, Mill concluded, for the individual to be influenced by "others" than by "the sinister interests and discreditable feelings which belong to himself, either individually or as a member of a class." Finally, Mill's sympathies with moderate socialism were derived in part from a belief that a society based on communal ownership had superior methods at its disposal for compelling the lazy members to produce. Under capitalism, incentives of selfinterest had failed to eliminate parasitism, for the parasites had been only too willing to follow their self-interest in concocting ingenious ways to avoid work.  But under socialism the bulk of the members would have a common interest in the productive output of the society, hence the malingerer would face the solidified resentment of the community. Where the private employer could only dismiss a worker, socialist society could stigmatize him by public opinion, "the most universal and one of the strongest" methods of control. (Politics and Vision, pp. 312-313)