FREE ESSAY ON MILL

MILL

John Stuart Mill on Proportional Representation 
Two very different ideas are usually confounded under the name democracy. The pure idea
of democracy, according to its definition, is the government of the whole people by the
whole people, equally represented. Democracy as commonly conceived and hitherto
practiced, is the government of the whole people by a mere majority of the people,
exclusively represented. The former is synonymous with the equality of all citizens; the
latter, strangely confounded with it, is a government of privilege, in favor of the
numerical majority, who alone possess practically any voice in the State. This is the
inevitable consequence of the manner in which the votes are now taken, the complete
disenfranchisement of minorities.
*** 
The confusion of ideas here is great, but is so easily cleared up, that one would suppose
the slightest indication would be sufficient to place the matter in its true light before
any mind of average intelligence. It would be so, but for the power of habit; owing to
which the simplest idea, if unfamiliar, has as great difficultly in making its way to the
mind as a far more complicated one. That the minority must yield to the majority, the
smaller number to the greater, is a familiar idea; and accordingly men think there is no
necessity for using their minds any further, and it does not occur to them that there is
any medium between allowing the smaller number to be equally powerful with the greater,
and blotting out the smaller number altogether. In a representative body actually
deliberating, the minority must of course be overruled; and in an equal democracy (since
the opinions of the constituents when they insist on them, determine those of the
representative body) the majority of the people, through their representatives, will
outvote and prevail over the minority and their representatives. But does it follow the
minority should have no representatives at all? Because the majority ought to prevail
over the minority, must the majority have all the votes, the minority none? Is it
necessary that the minority should not even be heard? Nothing but habit and old
association can reconcile any reasonable being to the needless injustice. In a really
equal democracy, every or any section would be represented, not disproportionately but
proportionately. As majority of the electors would always have a majority of the
representatives; but a minority of the electors would always have a minority of the
representatives. Man for man, they would be as fully represented as the majority. Unless
they are, there is not equal government, but a government of inequality and privilege;
one part of the people rule over the rest; there is a party whose fair and equal share of
influence in the representation is withheld from them contrary to all just government,
but above all, contrary to the principle of democracy, which professes equality as its
very root and foundation. 
The injustice and violation of principle are not less flagrant because those who suffer
by them are a minority; for there is not equal suffrage where every single individual
does not count for as much as any other single individual in the community. But it is not
only a minority who suffer. Democracy, thus constituted, does not even attain its
ostensible object, that of giving the powers of government in all cases to the numerical
majority. It does something every different: it gives them to a majority of the majority;
who may be, and often are, but a minority of the whole. . . . If democracy means the
certain ascendancy of the majority, there are no means of insuring that, but by allowing
every individual figure to tell equally in the summing up. Any minority left out, either
purposely or by the play of the machinery, gives the power not to the majority, but to a
minority in some other part of the scale.
*** 
And it is not solely through the votes of minorities that this system of election would
raise the intellectual standard of the House of Commons. Majorities would be compelled to
look out for members of a much higher calibre. When the individuals composing the
majority would no longer be reduced to Hobson's choice, of either voting for the person
brought forward by their local leaders, or not voting at all; when the nominees of the
leaders would have to encounter the competition not solely of the candidate of the
minority, but of all the men of established reputation in the country who were willing to
serve; it would be impossible any longer to foist upon the electors the first person who
presents himself with the catchwords of the party in his mouth, and three or four
thousand pounds in his pocket. The majority would insist on having a candidate worthy of
their choice, or they would carry their votes somewhere else.
*** 
[With proportional representation] the champions of unpopular doctrines would not put
forth their arguments merely in books and periodicals, read only by their own side; the
opposing ranks would meet face to f