“ A bad despot, when his own personal indulgences have been provided for, may sometimes be willing to let the people alone; but a good despot insists on doing them good by making them do their own business in a better way than they themselves know of. ”
John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (1861). copy citation
| Author | John Stuart Mill |
|---|---|
| Source | Considerations on Representative Government |
| Topic | business indulgence |
| Date | 1861 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/5669-h/5669-h.htm |
Context
“Rulers differ very much in the length to which they carry the control of the free agency of their subjects, or the supersession of it by managing their business for them. But the difference is in degree, not in principle; and the best despots often go the greatest lengths in chaining up the free agency of their subjects. A bad despot, when his own personal indulgences have been provided for, may sometimes be willing to let the people alone; but a good despot insists on doing them good by making them do their own business in a better way than they themselves know of. The regulations which restricted to fixed processes all the leading branches of French manufactures were the work of the great Colbert.
Very different is the state of the human faculties where a human being feels himself under no other external restraint than the necessities of nature, or mandates of society which he has his share in imposing, and which it is open to him, if he thinks them wrong, publicly to dissent from, and exert himself actively to get altered.”
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