Recently, the US government had to cease all unnecessary activities because of its inability to agree on the new fiscal year plan. This caused thousands of people to be forced to take vacations without salary, trying to save money to the state. To prevent a possible uprising and extreme dissatisfaction of these people, a bill passed making those so-called vacations paid-vacations, which also costs the state. This decision benefits the citizens right now, but toward what utility?
This decision is far from being utilitarian because it benefits neither the government, nor the overall population. By paying those in forced vacation, the government gives away money while having half of his activities stopped. This will result in money loss for the greatest amount of people over a period of time while furnishing a fewer amount of people the money they need.
However, it is interesting to note this decision reflects Mill’s perspective of utility giving priority to what is ‘’right’’, because this prevents thousands of people – though a ‘’few’’ in comparison to the whole population – from getting into fiscal problems at the moment. Even though the government looses money by paying those people without getting anything in return, those ‘’few’’ people are not suffering from lack of money, which means the state has done the ‘’right’’ thing, in a humane way of thinking.
In conclusion, although the US bill didn’t serve the greatest happiness to the greatest amount of people, it rather chose to do what was right to a few people who needed it at the moment.
