Say and the legacy of Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham
While Say praised the contributions of the Physiocrats and Adam Smith in certain areas, he did not hesitate to criticise them when he believed they made mistakes. He recognised that they deserved credit for disseminating political economy.
Smith was the most often cited author in Traite, but citation did not necessarily imply agreement. His espousing of Bentham’s utilitarianism, on the other hand, is somewhat easier to analyse.Say praised the Physiocrats - the “secte des Economistes”, as they were named in the eighteenth century - for their promotion of laissez faire: “their writings have all favoured the strictest form of morality and freedom which each man must have for his person, his talent and his possessions, a freedom without which individual happiness and public prosperity are meaningless” (Say 1803, 30). However, Say’s industrialism is a clear rejection of the Physiocrats’ focus on land and agriculture, interpreted as the only sources of wealth.[12]
Despite the fact that [the supporters of Quesnay and physiocracy] were ahead of their time in the area of political economy, and the fact that they rendered great services to this science, in what state would we be if one had managed all the public affairs according to the doctrines of Dupont de Nemours, and if trade and manufacturing had been considered sterile activities?
(Say 1828-29, 41 n1)
Instead, Say favoured Smith. He bluntly professed that political economy did not exist before him (Say 1803, 33). Smith’s merit is to have applied to political economy “the new method of dealing with sciences... starting from observed facts and deducing the general laws, of which they are the consequences” (Say 1814, 34). Another merit of Smith, according to Say, is separating political economy from politics. However, the filiation from Smith’s ideas to Say’s is complex.
Say amplified his criticisms of Smith’s views throughout the various editions of his main texts. His annotations to his own copy of the fifth edition of the Wealth of Nations show that he disagreed with him on a number of issues (Hashimoto 1980, 1982; Forget 1993). For instance, Say (1814, 39) complained about Smith’s “lack of clarity in several places, and of method almost everywhere”. In another instance, in Lettres a M. Malthus, he (1820, 42) stated that, though he had been influenced by Smith, he “no longer belonged to any school”. Similarly, in Cours, he warned against following Smith’s ideas too closely (1828-29, 750). In terms of substantive disagreements, he thought Smith overemphasised the importance of the division of labour and did not give a full account of the phenomenon of production. Say contended that enhanced production, not savings, generates wealth, and as a result, both consumption and savings would augment (Say 1803, 201-2). More importantly, Say rejected Smith’s theory of value and prices[13] (Faccarello and Steiner 2002).Say initially championed the utilitarian views of his fellow ideologues. In Traite, utility, defined as the power of an object to satisfy our needs and desires, plays a central role in Say’s thinking; yet the idea that “pleasure and pain are... the unique principle that guides human behaviour” (Helvetius 1773, 236) is surprisingly never discussed. The difference with Destutt de Tracy, who relied on this principle to analyse exchange, is striking. The break dates back to 1814. Say published in Mercure de France an article on the Theorie des peines et des recompenses that Etienne Dumont had authored, based on Jeremy Bentham’s manuscripts. During his 1814 trip to Britain, Francis Place introduced Say to Bentham. They then maintained a steady correspondence. In 1817, Say reviewed two books authored by Bentham for the journal Censeur Europeen. In his review, he expressed his interest in Bentham’s criticism of the English political system.[14]
Say came to believe that political economy has to address utilitarianism.
He thus discussed it in his lectures at the Athenee. While writing his Cours complet d’economie politique pratique, he initially planned to include a chapter on utilitarianism. Unsatisfied with the text he wrote, he asked Dumont if he could write the chapter; but Dumont died before he could produce a manuscript. Shortly after Say’s passing, in 1833, Charles Comte published the manuscript Say intended to include in Cours. In this text, Say criticised the Romantics and their praise of sentiments, particularly religious sentiments. However, to reply to the criticism that Germaine de Stael (1807, I, 165) made in Corinne ou l’Italie in reference to “this dull principle of utility”, Say was forced to change his formulation and admit that it is possible to make mistakes and prefer something harmful over something useful. What characterises the principle of utility, Say explained, is the fact that it compels individuals to exercise judgement and have knowledge about things: “it perpetually changes, as what was thought to be good is bad, or what was thought to be bad is good” (Say 1833, 139). Thus, individuals learn that showing respect for what is useful to others is the only way to obtain something useful from others. Say’s views carried on a long tradition[15] which culminated with a notion that Alexis de Tocqueville (1840, III, 243) later called “self-interest well understood”.Yet the main issue was the relationship between natural rights and the principle of utility. Bentham’s criticism of the declaration of human rights developed in 1816 prompted a strong reaction from Benjamin Constant (1817, II, 120) who asserted that “no obligation would bind us to laws that... restrain our legitimate liberties”. Say did not directly take part in the controversy, but he expressed some reserve on the notion of natural rights. Thus, he wrote to Dupont de Nemours (18 June 1814): “I am no longer certain that [men] have rights”. However, this conclusion should be qualified in light of his analysis of property - that the French constitutions of that time considered a natural right. Though he (2003, 340) claimed that “the landowner holds a conventional right only grounded on the customs of society which encouraged farming by allowing the landowner to have full control over his crops”, he admitted that the control of a man over his person - defined as the capacity to have complete use of his person and faculties - is sacred, even if it is not always defended by positive law. In other words, Say believed some rights were natural. Say’s role in the dissemination of utilitarianism in France was peculiar. Carrying on an old tradition that dates back to Holbach and Helvetius, he adopted some elements of Bentham’s thinking.
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