New Perspectives on Political Economy and Its History by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030429256
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

10.3 Unmediated Rendez-vous #1: Bentham’s Sur les prix

In December 1814, in a letter to John Herbert Koe, Bentham reported that ‘Ricardo and Say came here yesterday to dinner unexpected’, adding that ‘both [are] very intelligent and pleasant men, and both seem highly pleased’ (Bentham ([1809–16] 1988, p. 441). He was then renting Forde Abbey, a former monastery, in Dorset, but it was in his house in London that, according to John Bowring, the executor and editor of Bentham’s works, Ricardo visited him regularly: ‘Of Ricardo, Bentham used to say: .… I was often tête-à-tête with Ricardo . … We used to walk together in Hyde Park, and he reported to me what passed in the House of Commons’ (Bentham 1838–43, vol. 10, p. 498).

There is no clear indication of when Ricardo and Bentham first met: Sraffa mentions that it was probably ‘not long after the summer of 1811’ (Ricardo 1951–73, vol. 6, p. xxviii), while Weatherall (2012, p. 109) states that Ricardo ‘had not met Bentham when the scheme of the Chrestomathia was taking shape’, but without being more precise (Bentham’s involvement in the project of the school dated back to 1814). Sraffa and Weatherall both seem to have based their view on the first letter from Bentham to Ricardo, dated 13 August 1811, when Ricardo thanked Bentham for his invitation to spend some time with him and Mill in his residence of Barrow Green about 45 miles from London—an invitation which he declined, adding: ‘I trust that on your return to London, to compensate me for my present disappointment, you will give me your company at Mile End [then Ricardo’s house in London]’ (Ricardo 1951–73, vol. 6, pp. 46–47). Thanks to letters by Mill and by Bentham, we know that the latter returned to London from Barrow Green between 15 October (letter from Mill to Ricardo, sent from Barrow Green, in Ricardo 1951–73, vol. 6, p. 57) and 30 October (letter from Bentham to James Madison, sent from London, in Bentham ([1809–16] 1988, p. 182): the first meeting between Ricardo and Bentham hence took place after 15 October.

The first mention of Bentham in Ricardo’s correspondence dates back to the very end of 1810, that is, before their first meeting in person (in Ricardo 1951–73, vol. 6, p. 13). Interestingly it concerned economics, whereas politics seems to have been the main topic of their ‘tête-à-tête’, if we believe Bentham’s statement (reported by Bowring) according to which during their walks in Hyde Park, ‘[Ricardo] reported to me what passed in the House of Commons’.

Before this meeting with Bentham, Ricardo was asked by James Mill to read a manuscript dealing with monetary issues, that Bentham wrote probably from 1797 to 1801—after which date Bentham seems to have lost any interest in this matter.4 Although the manuscript with Ricardo’s annotations was first discovered by Sraffa in 1932 in Dumont’s papers in Geneva,5 part of it and Ricardo’s comments were published for the first time by E. Silberner in the Revue d’Histoire Economique et

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