A 'Real utopia': Would Mill disagree?

Abstract

This paper relates Bowles and Gintis's egalitarian proposal for a redistribution of assets from capitalists to workers to Mill's arguments for cooperatives and market socialism. The existing parallel between these two proposals, which stem from seemingly antagonistic traditions of thought, separated by almost one hundred and fifty years of theoretical disputes, practical drawbacks of socialist efforts, and unanticipated turns in the development of capitalism, is evidence of the resilience of an approach to social improvement of which Mill is one of the leading figures. Our main point is that a comparative reading of these two contributions not only illuminates the common themes covered and highlights problems and difficulties present in both, but suggests avenues of research which take their complementary strengths on board.