Book Club: J.S. Mill - On Liberty

"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign". What does Mill's insights mean for the radically different world that we inhabit now?

Last night, at the Fighting for a Free Future Book Club, we read a seminal piece in the history of British classical liberalism: J.S. Mill’s On Liberty.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

Mill was one of the first thinkers to articulate and popularise the harm principle. It is fair to say that you cannot be a classical liberal or a libertarian if you do not subscribe to the harm principle in at least some way. Mill’s 1859 On Liberty is a passionate defence of the importance of personal autonomy and restrictions on state power.

As our usual Chair, Steve Baker, was away, I chaired this meeting of the FFF Book Club. Here are my introductory speaking notes.

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I. Political and historical context

Mill wrote On Liberty amid Victorian England’s intellectual and political ferment. The mid-19th century was marked by rapid industrialisation, rising literacy, and the spread of democratic institutions. These developments brought new opportunities for individual expression, but also increased pressure to conform to societal values and social conventions.

The abolition of slavery in the British Empire (1834), the Chartist movement, and ongoing debates over suffrage and women’s rights shaped an era of reform. Mill’s work was a liberal response to both governmental oppression and “social tyranny.” Mill’s close collaboration on his works with his wife, Harriet Taylor, deeply influenced his thinking on equality and the liberty of diverse ways of living.

Taylor’s death in November 1858 deeply affected Mill, who completed the work in her honour. It was published in February 1859 and dedicated to her, with Mill acknowledging the essay as a product of their “joint authorship.”