Mill´s Construction on Representative Government

Mill’s Considerations on Representative Government in one sentence: Ideal, yet practical governmental governance can be realized only though the democratic governance of a “specially trained and experienced few”. Mill is an elitist. How can he be an elitist when he dedicates the first two chapters of his essay to praising the virtues of popular government? by surreptitiously advocating for elitism in the subsequent sixteen chapters. In these sixteen chapters, he manages to maintain the democratic façade he develops in the first two chapters while championing elite rule by promoting a governmental scheme in which the people are theoretical supreme, but practically play no role in exercising authority. The first instance of this dichotomy surfaces in Mill’s appreciation of democracy. He claims the virtue of popular government is in its educational value; the “intellectual and moral cultivation” brought about by political participation. By valuing the passive quality of political participation over its active quality, he underhandedly undermines the practice of democracy; education need not amount to any influence on the exercise of authority. Surreptitiously, Mill claims democratic influence on the exercise of authority is great theoretically, but only theoretically; practical influence on the exercise of authority must be left to the “specially trained and experienced few” of “superior minds.”

Mill openly champions representative government – government in which people rule through their representatives – as the best form of government. He then furtively champions elitism through his reasoning as to why representatives are necessary, his intricate prescriptions for how representatives should be chosen, and his misleading schemati...

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...lly blessed with some capacity for reason. Via reasoning, men are able to acquire knowledge about the world through lessons of experience. To be able to obtain knowledge, men’s capacity for reason must be suitably developed. The capacity for reasoning is not equally developed for every individual. Individuals therefore differ in their ability to obtain knowledge; individuals with a more cultivated capacity for reasoning are more proficient at obtaining knowledge. According to Mill, in any given community, only a select few will possess an exceptionally cultivated capacity for reasoning; in any given community, these superior minds, having “superior intellects and characters will necessarily be outnumbered.” The wisest members of any given community will therefore be a select few men. It follows that government must be run by a select few men for maximum efficiency.