Abstract The interrelation between John Stuart Mill's political economy and his social philosophy is often neglected by economists, even though social and moral progress is the aim and focus of Mill's work as scholarship on Mill has made clear in past decades. This paper aims to show how Mill's political economy fits his framework of progress. It is argued that Mill characterized his economics in accordance with his theory of (individual) development, which explained how people could be induced to change patterns of behavior that prevented progress, enabling “a tendency towards a better and happier state.” Mapping out how to overcome the Malthusian trap of poverty, the most serious stumbling block to man's material and moral improvement, Mill brought economics into action as an instrument for progress.