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John Stuart Mills Tyranny of The Majority
John Stuart Mills Tyranny of The Majority
John Stuart Mills Tyranny of The Majority
John HEAD:
Stuart Mills JOHNofSTUART
Tyranny MILLS TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY
the Majority 1
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John Stuart Mills Tyranny of the Majority 2
John Stuart Mills fears that if no limitations are implemented to the rules of the majority,
then there is a possibility that this “freedom” will be exploited and there will come a time when
the majority will oppress the minority. Mills fear that someday, the minority will not have any
freedom to choose their own religion, language or culture which will eventually stop them from
having an identity of their own because the majority will rule over them. Since Mills lived in a
world when there is prime distinction between the rich and poor and the poor outnumbers the
rich, giving them equal rights is not “acceptable”. He fears that if this is done there will come a
time when the majority poor will overrule the minority rich and overthrow them.
Because of these fear, Mills proposed a solution to this. His concept of “tyranny of the
majority” is to have a proportional representation and giving extra powers or votes for those
educated and rich citizens in the society. This concept of Mill may be advantageous sometimes
when a group is overly populated but this does not fully reflect the true meaning of democracy
since the rights of other people are suspended. For example, if in a specific congregation,
majority are Christians (50%), 25% are Muslims, 15% Protestants and 10% are Buddist. When
voting, there is a possibility that the stand of the Christians will automatically win because they
have the most number. Using Mills proportional representation, each group can select two (2)
representatives and those representatives will be the one to vote. In this way, each group is
equally represented or since the Christians have the most number, they can have 3
representatives.
In terms of world democracy, the majority rule has bad and good effects. On the good
side, everyone has a right to be represented while on the bad side, groups with higher numbers
John Stuart Mills Tyranny of the Majority 3
can overthrow the minority groups. Mills idea could be applicable to the modern society and
politics since groups will be proportionally represented, however, this can deprive the rights of
References:
“Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United States and Its Consequences” (2012).
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/1_ch15.htm