![]() ![]() Although he often advocated for laissez-faire policies, he was also sympathetic to many socialist ideas and causes. ![]() Where Mill fit into this picture is up for debate. Large cities grew around factories, and the working class emerged as a political actor. Average income and population numbers rose steadily – a hitherto unknown phenomenon. Within England, the industrial revolution was meanwhile having its full transformative effect. As Chief Examiner of the East India Company and a leading thinker on colonial policy, Mill played an important role in this golden age of British imperialism. At the same time, Britain carried out a vast expansion of its overseas colonies and reaped the fruits of its extensive global trade network. Through balance of power diplomacy and unchallenged naval dominance, Britain underwrote a 100-year peace, lasting from the 1815 Congress of Vienna until WW I. After the defeat of Napoleon, Britain had few serious rivals in Europe. The 19th Century marked the heyday of the British Empire. (Wikimedia Commons) Mill was writing in the Victorian age, in which formality and highly restrictive moral convention carried the day. An 1844 fashion plate depicting clothing for men and women. ![]()
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