Portrait of John Stuart Mill
Center-left · Thinker or writer · From history

John Stuart Mill

English philosopher and MP, 1806 to 1873

See how United Kingdom compares →

Made the classic case for individual liberty in On Liberty, limiting state power to preventing harm to others, and as an MP pushed for votes for women.

John Stuart Mill sits in the right-libertarian part of the Caucus economy and liberty compass: slightly free market and strongly libertarian. The clearest positions are strongly libertarian on liberty and authority, strongly progressive on culture and leaning secular on religion.

Read more about John Stuart Mill on Wikipedia →

Where John Stuart Mill sits on ten dimensions

Each scale runs from one pole to the other, and the dot shows the overall tendency of this person's record and public life. These are simplified estimates and open to debate.

💰EconomySlightly free market
State-ledFree market
⚖️Liberty and authorityStrongly libertarian
LibertarianAuthoritarian
🎭CultureStrongly progressive
ProgressiveTraditional
🌍NationLeaning globalist
GlobalistNationalist
🌱EnvironmentLeaning nature-first
Growth-firstNature-first
🤖TechnologyLeaning tech-optimist
Tech-cautiousTech-optimist
🕊️War and peaceSlightly peace-first
Peace-firstStrength-first
🏛️InstitutionsLeaning institutional
Anti-establishmentInstitutional
🙏ReligionLeaning secular
SecularReligious
🛡️InterventionismSlightly non-interventionist
Non-interventionistInterventionist

People most like John Stuart Mill

Andrei Sakharov Soviet physicist and dissident, 1921 to 198998%Steven Pinker Canadian-American psychologist and author98%Emma Bonino Italian politician and Radical Party leader97%Karl Popper Austrian-British philosopher, 1902 to 199497%Richard Dawkins British evolutionary biologist97%John Rawls American philosopher, 1921 to 200297%Tim Berners-Lee British inventor of the World Wide Web97%Neil deGrasse Tyson American astrophysicist and presenter97%

People furthest from John Stuart Mill

Ruhollah Khomeini Supreme Leader of Iran, 1979 to 19894%Benito Mussolini Prime Minister of Italy, 1922 to 19435%Vladimir Putin President of Russia, 2000 to present (with a term as prime minister)5%Mojtaba Khamenei Supreme Leader of Iran, 2026 to present5%

Political views closest to John Stuart Mill

Civil libertarianismPuts rights such as free speech, privacy and due process above almost every other goal,…99%Liberal feminismPursues gender equality through law, education and equal access to jobs and politics…99%ProgressivismUses government to advance social equality, civil rights and reform.98%Social liberalismDefends individual rights and open societies while backing public services and equal…98%

Read more about John Stuart Mill

These links open book searches on Amazon. If you buy through them, Caucus earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. They have no influence on where anyone is placed on the map.

Biographies of John Stuart MillBooks on civil libertarianism

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Percentages show how close two profiles are across all ten dimensions. Including a person here is for study and comparison, not approval. Portrait: London Stereoscopic Company, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; see all photo credits.