John Stuart Mill on Colonies
This chapter explores some important yet neglected aspects of John Stuart Mill's vision of global order. Mill has played a pivotal role in the recent wave of scholarship dedicated to unraveling the entanglement of Western political thought and imperialism. The chapter analyzes three key thematics in his colonial writings: (1) his evolving account of the political economy of colonization; (2) his views on “responsible government” and character formation; and (3) finally, his elaboration of the role played by conceptions of physical space, and of the constitutional structure of the imperial system. It also pursues two subsidiary lines of argument. First, it identifies how Mill's justificatory account of colonization shifted over time. The other line of argument focuses on how Mill framed his narrative.