Mill Reading

I found the activity that we did at the beginning of yesterday's class to be a very interesting tie in, especially considering the political climate of Ithaca. So many people at IC claim to be "hardcore" liberals, but I'm curious to see how many people could actually define liberalism. Despite the fact that I'm interested in politics and working on making it my second major, I'm not entirely sure that I could completely and thoroughly define it either. 

Both John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hobbes examined and wrote about how much control citizens were willing to give up to their governments or sovereigns. Both focused on the relationship between the ruler and those being ruled, but came up with different ideas about how that relationship should be. 

Hobbes wrote about an absolute monarchy in which the ruler, or sovereign, would have supreme power. The people basically give up all power and rights when they agree to the terms in the covenant. They have no power to overthrow, disagree with or challenge the ruler. The sovereign is all powerful with no system of checks and balances. 

Mill, however, believes that the only time individuals or society as a whole can interfere with individual liberty is for self protection (www.bartelby.com)  He believes in a more democratic approach to government. 

Liberty, or the quality or state of being free, is a core idea of liberalism, according to in class discussion on September 3rd. Therefore, Mill's core political beliefs according to On Liberty, share a liberalistic view of government, whereas Hobbes promotes a very oppressive and totalitarian government. The 2 different writers develop completely different political ideologies based on the same question.