In his political treatise, "Considerations on Representative Government," John Stuart Mill superficially argues that representative government is the ideal form of government because it grants all citizens a voice in government and thus allows all members of societies to perform a public function. While outwardly claiming that a government of the many is ideal, after reading this volume it becomes clear that Mill is not a proponent of the type of democracy practiced in America, in which equal, "universal" suffrage results in majority rule. Rather, in this work Mill advocates the formation of a limited representative government, in which both the majority of the electors, and all of the elected, would be occupants of upper-class positions in society ”in other words, Mill is in fact arguing for a government by the few. In addition to arguing that those who cannot read or write, who are on public assistance, or who do not pay taxes should be excluded from suffrage, Mill contends that whole societies of "barbaric" peoples are not ready for a representative government, and should thus be governed by despotic rule. Throughout this treatise, Mill outlines why "uncivilized" societies should be under the control of a superior authority, the obligations and functions of this authority, how and why such rule would benefit these backward populations, how members of these societies could slowly be incorporated into the superior regimes, how they could be protected from abuses by such superiors, and the ideal system of government to be used in such cases in which a more civilized and intelligent country takes it upon itself to provide benevolent rule over inferior groups of peoples. No doubt influenced by knowledge of India gained by working for the British East Asia Company, Mill's discussions concerning uncivilized, inferior, and barbaric societies are not only a thinly disguised argument justifying British subjugation of foreign population