Hayek on Mill

It is perhaps an understatement to say that trying to understand F. A. Hayek’s assessment of John Stuart Mill is a complicated matter. Hayek referred to Mill frequently. Sometimes, and particularly in The Constitution of Liberty (1960), he praised him. What may surprise those who associate both Mill and Hayek with the classical liberal tradition is that more often, and this in writings that both preceded and followed publication of The Constitution of Liberty, Hayek criticized Mill. Moreover, the criticisms were not all of a piece, but focused on different aspects of Mill’s work. Part of the problem is that Mill, like Hayek, made so many different contributions: among those mentioned by Hayek were his System of Logic ([1843] 1973), the Principles of Political Economy ([1848] 1965), and of course On Liberty ([1859] 1977). In addition, Mill’s own views evolved, sometimes rather dramatically, over time. Which Mill—the doctrinaire utilitarian, the romantic, the one impressed by Auguste Comte or the one who disavowed him, the Mill of the early or of the later editions of The Principles, the pre– or post–Harriet Taylor Mill—is the one whose ideas Hayek is examining? Furthermore, it was not just Mill’s own thought, but