IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gat/wpaper/1135.html

Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism : the history of a paradox. Bentham’s Defence of Usury under Saint-Amand Bazard’s Interpretation

Author

Listed:
  • Michel Bellet

    (Université de Lyon, Lyon, F-69007, France ; Université Jean Monnet ; CNRS, GATE Lyon St Etienne, Saint-Etienne, F-42000, France)

Abstract

This article reveals and studies the connections between Bentham’s Defence of Usury (1787) and Saint-Amand Bazard (1791-1832), a founder of Saint-Simonianism. We first traces Bazard’s exposure to Bentham through his unknown friendship with Bentham’s publisher Etienne Dumont. After introducing in details the Saint-Simonian views on interest and money, we examines the significance of Bazard’s translation of Defence of Usury and his shared opposition against usure laws. We explain why the puzzling reference to Benthamite utilitarianism is not fortuitous but appears to justify a common ground between Bentham’s utilitarism and Saint-Simonianism. This connection did not survive the July Revolution.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel Bellet, 2011. "Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism : the history of a paradox. Bentham’s Defence of Usury under Saint-Amand Bazard’s Interpretation," Working Papers 1135, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    • Handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:1135
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2011/1135.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin S. Staum, 1998. "French Lecturers in Political Economy, 1815–1848: Varieties of Liberalism," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 95-120, Spring.
    2. Gilbert Faccarello & Philippe Steiner, 2008. "Religion and Political Economy in Early-Nineteenth-Century France," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 40(5), pages 26-61, Supplemen.
    3. Giuseppe Coco & David De Meza, 2009. "In Defense of Usury Laws," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1691-1703, December.
    4. Antoinette Baujard, 2010. "Collective interest versus individual interest in Bentham's felicific calculus. Questioning welfarism and fairness," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 607-634.
    5. José Luís Cardoso & António de Vasconcelos Nogueira, 2005. "Isaac de Pinto (1717-1787): An Enlightened Economist and Financier," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 37(2), pages 263-292, Summer.
    6. Murphy, Antoin E., 1997. "John Law: Economic Theorist and Policy-maker," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198286493.
    7. Nathalie Sigot, 1998. "Les principes d'un système monétaire sain de Bentham," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 32(1), pages 117-140.
    8. Sandrine Leloup, 2000. "Pour en finir avec l'usure. L'enjeu de la controverse entre Adam Smith et Jeremy Bentham," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 51(4), pages 913-936.
    9. Marco E.L. Guidi, 2009. "Jeremy Bentham," Chapters, in: Jan Peil & Irene van Staveren (ed.), Handbook of Economics and Ethics, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Joseph Persky, 2007. "Retrospectives: From Usury to Interest," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 227-236, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Michel Bellet, 2011. "Saint-Simonism and Utilitarianism: the history of a paradox. Bentham's Defence of Usury under Saint-Amand Bazard's Interpretation," Working Papers halshs-00654847, HAL.
    2. Giuseppe Coco & David De Meza, 2009. "In Defense of Usury Laws," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(8), pages 1691-1703, December.
    3. Tuomas Takalo, 2019. "Regulation of short-term consumer credits," Journal of Banking Regulation, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 20(4), pages 348-354, December.
    4. Ryszard Kowalski & Grzegorz Wałęga, 2022. "Regulation of Usury: Justification, Consequences, and Some Lessons from Polish Experience," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 57-73.
    5. Thomas M. Humphrey, 1999. "Mercantilists and classicals: insights from doctrinal history," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 55-82.
    6. Stefano Solari, 2010. "The corporative third way in Social Catholicism (1830 to 1918)," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 87-113.
    7. de Meza, David & Reito, Francesco, 2019. "Too Little Lending: A Problem of Symmetric Information," MPRA Paper 93700, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Richard S. Dale & Johnnie E. V. Johnson & Leilei Tang, 2005. "Financial markets can go mad: evidence of irrational behaviour during the South Sea Bubble," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 58(2), pages 233-271, May.
    9. Madarász, Aladár, 2012. "Adósság, pénz és szabadság [Taxation, money and freedom]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 457-507.
    10. Nathalie Sigot, 1998. "Les principes d'un système monétaire sain de Bentham," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 32(1), pages 117-140.
    11. Marco Dardi, 2010. "Marshall on welfare, or: the 'utilitarian' meets the 'evolver'," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 405-437.
    12. Murizah Osman Salleh & Aziz Jaafar & M. Shahid Ebrahim, 2011. "The Inhibition of Usury (Riba An-Nasi'ah) and the Economic Underdevelopment of the Muslim World," Working Papers 11002, Bangor Business School, Prifysgol Bangor University (Cymru / Wales).
    13. Antoinette Baujard & Muriel Gilardone, 2013. "Individual judgments and social choice in Sen's idea of justice and democracy," Post-Print halshs-00950320, HAL.
    14. A. Baujard, 2006. "From moral welfarism to technical non-welfarism : A step back to Bentham’s felicific calculus of its members," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 200606, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.
    15. Antoin E. Murphy, 2004. "Corporate Ownership in France: The Importance of History," NBER Working Papers 10716, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Kowalski, Ryszard & Wałęga, Grzegorz, . "Regulacja lichwy: uzasadnienie, konsekwencje i wybrane wnioski z polskich doświadczeń," Gospodarka Narodowa-The Polish Journal of Economics, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie / SGH Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2022(2).
    17. Antoinette Baujard & Adrien Lutz, 2018. "The capacity to confuse: rescuing the Saint-Simonian notion of ability from modern capability theories of social justice," Working Papers halshs-01963252, HAL.
    18. Guimaraesy, Bernardo & Meyerhof Salama, Bruno, 2017. "Contingent judicial deference: theory and application to usury laws," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86146, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    19. Lutz G. Arnold & Johannes Reeder & Stefanie Trepl, 2014. "Single-name Credit Risk, Portfolio Risk and Credit Rationing," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 81(322), pages 311-328, April.
    20. Mauricio C. Coutinho, 2014. "Arguments On Nom-Metallic Money (1650-1750)," Anais do XLI Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 41st Brazilian Economics Meeting] 006, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:gat:wpaper:1135. 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: Nelly Wirth The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Nelly Wirth to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gateefr.html .

    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.