Mill's Construction of Representative Government ". Mill is an elitist. How can he be elitist when he devotes the first two chapters of his essay to extolling the virtues of popular government? by surreptitiously advocating elitism in the following sixteen chapters. In these sixteen chapters, he manages to maintain the democratic facade that he develops in the first two chapters while defending the power of elites by promoting a governmental system in which the people are theoretically supreme, but play virtually no role in the exercise of authority. The first example of this dichotomy appears in Mill's assessment of democracy. He asserts that the virtue of popular government lies in its educational value; the “intellectual and moral culture” provided by political participation. By valuing the passive quality of political participation to the detriment of its active quality, it sneakily undermines the practice of democracy; education does not necessarily have to equate to any influence on the exercise of authority. Surreptitiously, Mill asserts that democratic influence on the exercise of authority is great in theory, but only in theory; Practical influence over the exercise of authority must be left to “a few specially trained and experienced superior minds.” Mill openly defends representative government—a government in which people rule through their representatives—as the best form of government. He then stealthily defends elitism through his reasoning for why representatives are necessary, his complex prescriptions for how representatives should be chosen, and his misleading schemes...... middle of paper... ...endowed with a certain capacity for reason. Through reasoning, men are able to acquire knowledge about the world through the lessons of experience. To be able to acquire knowledge, men's reasoning capacity must be properly developed. Reasoning ability is not equally developed for every individual. Individuals therefore differ in their capacity to acquire knowledge; individuals with more cultivated reasoning skills are more competent in acquiring knowledge. According to Mill, in a given community, only a select few will possess an exceptionally cultivated capacity for reasoning; in any given community, these superior minds, endowed with “superior intelligence and character, will necessarily be outnumbered.” The wisest members of a given community will therefore be a few selected men. It follows that the government must be run by a few men selected for maximum efficiency..

Essay / Mill's Construction of Representative Government ". Mill is an elitist. How can he be elitist when he devotes the first two chapters of his essay to extolling the virtues of popular government? by surreptitiously advocating elitism in the following sixteen chapters. In these sixteen chapters, he manages to maintain the democratic facade that he develops in the first two chapters while defending the power of elites by promoting a governmental system in which the people are theoretically supreme, but play virtually no role in the exercise of authority. The first example of this dichotomy appears in Mill's assessment of democracy. He asserts that the virtue of popular government lies in its educational value; the “intellectual and moral culture” provided by political participation. By valuing the passive quality of political participation to the detriment of its active quality, it sneakily undermines the practice of democracy; education does not necessarily have to equate to any influence on the exercise of authority. Surreptitiously, Mill asserts that democratic influence on the exercise of authority is great in theory, but only in theory; Practical influence over the exercise of authority must be left to “a few specially trained and experienced superior minds.” Mill openly defends representative government—a government in which people rule through their representatives—as the best form of government. He then stealthily defends elitism through his reasoning for why representatives are necessary, his complex prescriptions for how representatives should be chosen, and his misleading schemes...... middle of paper... ...endowed with a certain capacity for reason. Through reasoning, men are able to acquire knowledge about the world through the lessons of experience. To be able to acquire knowledge, men's reasoning capacity must be properly developed. Reasoning ability is not equally developed for every individual. Individuals therefore differ in their capacity to acquire knowledge; individuals with more cultivated reasoning skills are more competent in acquiring knowledge. According to Mill, in a given community, only a select few will possess an exceptionally cultivated capacity for reasoning; in any given community, these superior minds, endowed with “superior intelligence and character, will necessarily be outnumbered.” The wisest members of a given community will therefore be a few selected men. It follows that the government must be run by a few men selected for maximum efficiency..

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