Author Archive

Timothy Rooney

Timothy Rooney is an economics student at Queens College in New York City, with additional concentrations in mathematics and English. He is primarily interested in the field of Capital Theory, as well as the effects of paternalism, and looks to incorporate his research into public policy.

In wake of the US Inauguration , we can look to a valuable insight provided by the great English liberal John Stuart Mill more than a century ago: everyone loves executive power—when his or her party wins the election. Representative government started to gain traction and popularity in the Western world after the democratic Revolutions of 1848. John Stuart Mill—a pioneer of Classical Liberalism—was one of its strongest advocates. Yet in Considerations on Representative Government, published in 1861, he also warned against a problem that could arise from such political arrangements. Specifically, the danger that people could begin to value their party holding power over freedom itself. ‘Members of parties are willing to abdicate his personal freedom of action into …