IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v6y1999i4p523-551.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith on the usury laws: a 'Smithian' reply to Bentham and a new problem

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Hollander

Abstract

Adam Smith justified the contemporary usury laws and was severely criticised by Bentham and most modern writers with the important exception of J.M. Keynes. We argue that pace Bentham, Smith did not intend to preclude loan financing of all 'risky' ventures and give a 'monopoly' to safe investments and did not neglect the potential emergence of black credit markets. Yet Smith ought to have modified his position independently of Bentham's criticism, considering a marked rise in the rate at which governments borrowed in the late 1770s.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Hollander, 1999. "Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith on the usury laws: a 'Smithian' reply to Bentham and a new problem," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(4), pages 523-551.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:6:y:1999:i:4:p:523-551
    DOI: 10.1080/10427719900000042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10427719900000042
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/10427719900000042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Maksumov, Rashid, 2010. "Critical analysis of Chapter 23 of Keynes’s Notes on Mercantilism in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)," EconStor Research Reports 155318, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    2. Nathan Rosenberg, 1960. "Some Institutional Aspects of the Wealth of Nations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 68(6), pages 557-557.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laurie Bréban & André Lapidus, 2019. "Adam Smith on lotteries: an interpretation and formal restatement," Working Papers hal-00914222, HAL.
    2. Diesel, Jonathon, 2021. "Adam Smith on usury: An esoteric reading," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 727-738.
    3. Laurie Bréban & André Lapidus, 2019. "Adam Smith on lotteries: an interpretation and formal restatement," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 157-197, January.
    4. Arvind Ashta & Laurence Attuel-Mendès & Zaka Ratsimalahelo, 2015. "Another “French paradox”: explaining why interest rates to microenterprises did not increase with the change in French usury legislation," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 479-509, December.
    5. Nathalie Sigot & Laurie Bréban, 2020. "The influence of laws on informal rules: a reassement of the controversy between Jeremy Bentham and Adam Smith on usury [L’influence des lois sur les règles informelles : une relecture de la contro," Post-Print hal-03825528, HAL.
    6. Constant Mews & Adrian Walsh, 2011. "Usury and its Critics: From the Middle Ages to Modernity," Chapters, in: Mohamed Ariff & Munawar Iqbal (ed.), The Foundations of Islamic Banking, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Timothy Erickson & Toni M. Whited, 2000. "Measurement Error and the Relationship between Investment and q," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 1027-1057, October.
    2. Lloyd Ulman, 1992. "Why Should Human Resource Managers Pay High Wages?," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 177-212, June.
    3. V. Ragupathy & Stefano Zambelli & K. Vela Velupillai, 2013. "A Non-linear Model of the Trade Cycle: Mathematical Reflections on Hugh Hudson's Classic," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 115-125, June.
    4. Hany Shawky & Ronald Forbes & Alan Frankle, 1983. "Liquidity Services and Capital Market Equilibrium: The Case for Money Market Mutual Funds," Journal of Financial Research, Southern Finance Association;Southwestern Finance Association, vol. 6(2), pages 141-152, June.
    5. Hideaki Aoyama & Hiroshi Yoshikawa & Hiroshi Iyetomi & Yoshi Fujiwara, 2008. "Labour Productivity Superstatistics," Papers 0809.3541, arXiv.org.
    6. Ulrich van Suntum, "undated". "The Purchasing Power Argument – Could Rising Wages Foster Employment?," Working Papers 200126, Institute of Spatial and Housing Economics, Munster Universitary.
    7. Rawi Abdelal, 2013. "The profits of power: Commerce and realpolitik in Eurasia," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 421-456, June.
    8. P. Arestis & C. Driver, 1984. "The Policy Implications of Post Keynesianism," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 1093-1105, December.
    9. Paul Davidson, 1986. "The Simple Macroeconomics of a Nonergodic Monetary Economy versus a Share Economy: Is Weitzman’s Macroeconomics Too Simple?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 212-225, December.
    10. Evelyn L. Forget & Shahram Manouchehri, 1988. "Keynes’s Neglected Heritage: The Classical Microfoundations of The General Theory," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 401-413, March.
    11. Rendahl, Pontus, 2014. "Fiscal Policy in an Unemployment Crisis," CEPR Discussion Papers 9992, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Kenneth Kasa, 2000. "Forecasting the Forecasts of Others in the Frequency Domain," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(4), pages 726-756, October.
    13. Paul Davidson, 1985. "Liquidity and Not Increasing Returns is the Ultimate Source of Unemployment Equilibrium," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 373-384, March.
    14. Michael Bordo & Andrew Filardo, 2005. "Deflation and monetary policy in a historical perspective: remembering the past or being condemned to repeat it?," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 20(44), pages 799-844, October.
    15. Masaaki Shirakawa, 2010. "Revisiting the Philosophy behind Central Bank Policy," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 485-493, December.
    16. Miguel D. Ramirez, 2020. "Capital as a social process: A Marxian perspective," HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 9(1), pages 41-71.
    17. Lucia Bellenzier & J{o}rgen Vitting Andersen & Giulia Rotundo, 2016. "Contagion in the world's stock exchanges seen as a set of coupled oscillators," Papers 1602.07452, arXiv.org.
    18. Ellerman David, 2004. "The Market Mechanism of Appropriation," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 1-21, December.
    19. Chandra Kanodia, 2006. "Discussion of Disclosure Risk and Price Drift," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 381-388, May.
    20. Edmund S. Phelps & Éloi Laurent, 2005. "La « contre-performance » de l'Europe continentale. Le lien entre institutions, dynamisme et prospérité économique," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 92(1), pages 9-41.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:6:y:1999:i:4:p:523-551. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.