Jean-Baptiste Say as a Benthamite Utilitarian

This article aims at solving one of the puzzles of Say’s value theory – was it Smithian or utilitarian? – and discussing another one: was Say as a utilitarian following a French tradition or was he – as he pretended to be – a Benthamite? In the first (1803) edition of the Traité d’Economie Politique, Say took a rather Smithian position on value, although he had already distanced himself from the Scottish philosopher in his annotations of the Wealth of Nations in his own copy. Later it greatly annoyed him that the Traité had earned him the reputation of being a Smithian. Between 1814 and 1823 he fought another battle on value with David Ricardo. Between the latter’s death and his own in 1832, it seemed that he was still struggling with Ricardo’s ghost. By contrast, Say’s relationship with Jeremy Bentham has not been a topic of great interest in the history of ideas. From Say’s visit to England in 1814 till Bentham’s death in 1832, they entertained a correspondence on a variety of subjects, generally more personal and political than economic. But Say was a self confessed Benthamite, a position consistent with his subjectivist ideas on value. It remains an intriguing question why he did not trace back his own utilitarianism to French 18th century thinkers like Helvétius, who had also influenced Bentham. It is my conclusion that Say is both a positive utilitarian (in his theory of value) and a normative one (in his political philosophy) and accordingly deserves to be ranked among the classical utilitarians.