2.1. Say’s Traité d’Économie Politique

According to Say, the role of political economy was to show how wealth was born, spread and eventually destroyed (1803, p. v) – that is, the ways in which wealth was produced, distributed, and consumed. Say distinguished political economy from statistics, which, for him, focused on the state of national production and consumption (1803, v). Political economy explained the causes that favoured the growth of wealth and brought about its decadence. It also examined the necessary relations with the population, the power of the states and the happiness or misfortune of people (Say 1803, v).

Political economy, like the exact sciences, was based on a small number of fundamental principles, with numerous corollaries or consequences that followed from these principles. It was important for the progress of science to firmly establish these principles, which, according to Say, were not the work of men (Say 1803, x). They rather derived from the “nature of things”² and were discovered through observation and analysis (Say, 1803, p. xi). The principles that founded political economy were rigorous deductions from general facts that could not be disputed (Say 1803, vii).

Say’s successor at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, Jérôme Adolphe Blanqui (1798–1854), argued that the publication of Say’s Traité in 1803 permanently separated political economy from its moral and political foundations. According to Blanqui, the book achieved this task by grounding the subject upon objective facts (Whatmore 1998). Annie L. Cot and Jérôme Lallement argue that Say’s definition of political economy identified specific subjects, namely production, distribution, and consumption. Additionally, they argue that by the end of the eighteenth century, these subjects were separated from the three disciplines that had previously defined them: moral philosophy, political philosophy and natural law. Through this process of separation, they contend that political economy became an autonomous domain (1996). However, political economy was not yet separated from its moral foundations in Say’s 1803 edition. In the Preliminary Discourse, Say explained that, like mathematics, political economy was a science based on abstraction. However, he argued that political economy focused on values, whereas mathematics focused on magnitudes. Values were subject to the action of the faculties, needs and will of men. Therefore, they fell within the domain of morality (Say 1803, xxxviii). The emancipation of political economy from its moral foundations progressively occurred as Say revised his Traité in the early nineteenth century. In the second edition, he claimed that the values that political economy focused on were only partly moral. According to Say, they were incapable of any exact assessment and could not provide any data for any positive calculation. The reasons that acted on the values were partly moral and escaped any kind of fixation (Say 1814). In the third edition of the Traité published in 1817, Say claimed that the essential thing in political economy, like in animal physics, was the knowledge of the sequence that linked causes and effects. He claimed that “there is nothing rigorous in living nature, and even less in moral nature” (Say 1817), marking a clear separation between political economy and morality.

According to Say, political economy was everyone’s business since nearly everyone contributed to the production of wealth and everyone, without exception, contributed to its consumption (Say 1803, xxvii). Say’s goal was to bring together in a body of doctrine arranged methodically what in political economy was for the use of all men, whether they were public officials or simple citizens (Say 1803, xxxiii). He argued that this kind of knowledge would be useful for everyone and should be made available to everyone, including those with little education (Say 1803, xxxiii).

This body of doctrine, logically organised, began with the production of wealth and finished with its consumption, forming the foundation of Say’s so-called law of demand. There are multiple analyses of the meaning of Say’s law of demand and its place in the classical system of analysis (e.g., Baumol 1977, Mongiovi 1990, Blaug 1997b, Kates 1997, Heertje 2004, Hollander 2005, Béraud and Numa 2018). The purpose of the next section is to demonstrate how Say’s law contributed to obscuring the previously established discourse on consumption. It shows how Say’s law reversed Smith’s logic, according to which the desire to consume and effective demand drove production. For Say, production determined the level of demand, and its end was consumption. With the new logic, consumption became an economic category that could be analysed separately from production and distribution. Consumption remained rooted in the moral foundations of political economy in 1803. However, these moral underpinnings gradually disappeared throughout the nineteenth century.

2.2. Say’s Chapter “Des Débouchés:” Production Drives Demand

Say’s law of demand first appeared in the 1803 edition of the Traité, in the chapter titled “Des débouchés” (1803, I. xxii). Here, Say argued that producers produced a quantity much greater than their consumption of any specific commodity because they all needed several other commodities to live an agreeable life. The exchanges producers made of their products with those of other producers offered these products what Say called “des débouchés” (1803, I. xxii) or outlets. For Say, producers specialised in the production of what they needed for themselves and exchanged the surplus for the product of other producers. Production and exchange created the “débouché,” that is, a market or demand, which did not exist before the exchange. The main argument of Say in the chapter was that production was the source of effective demand (see also Baumol 1977). In his effort to synthesise and reorganise the Wealth of Nations, Say reversed the logic of Smith. For Smith, men specialised in the production of products because they knew with certainty that they could exchange the surplus for the things they wanted to consume (1776, I.ii.3). They did not only specialise in what they needed for themselves, but also in what others needed, which ensured the certainty of exchange. Thus, demand existed prior to the exchange for Smith and conditioned it.

In the chapter, Say wanted to show what he claimed to be “one of the most important truths of political economy” (1803, I. xxii). For Say, it was not the abundance of money that created les débouchés but the abundance of other products in general (1803, I. xxii). Money only had a passing role in the exchange of products, and, in the end, products were only paid for with other products (1803, I. xxii). Thus, Say argued that “consumption is not a cause but an effect” (1803, IV. v). To consume, one had to purchase but could only purchase with what had been produced. The quantity of products demanded was determined by the quantity of products created (1803, IV. v). In the second edition, Say explained that if it was with wheat that we obtained the money with which we wanted to buy silks, it was the production of wheat – not the desire to consume silks – that created effective demand for silks. Desire without means to purchase could exist but would have no effect (1814, III. iv) – that is, it would result in no actual consumption.

According to Say, when a nation had too many products of one type, the way to sell them was to create products of another kind (1803, I. xxii). The best way to make “débouchés” for products was to multiply them, to produce them rather than destroy or consume them. For Say, the “débouchés” were found in accumulation (1803, IV. v). Say sought to refute the argument previously put forth by the physiocrats, which posited that increased consumption led to increased production. For those économistes, a state enriched itself through its consumption and saving anything was directly contrary to public prosperity (1803, V. iii). Say’s loi des débouchés also went against Smith’s argument that consumption encouraged industry to promote opulence. On the contrary, for Say, consumption did not have to be encouraged to promote production. Production was not limited by consumption but by the means of production. Gluts occurred when there were too many means of production applied to one type of production and not enough to another (1803, IV. v). It was, according to Say, an evil that could only ever be temporary (1803, IV. v).

The new logic established by Say was that production led to exchange, which created demand that was then consumed – a reversal of Smith’s argument. In the process, consumption became a separate category of analysis, to which Say dedicated the final book of his Traité. Political economy, for Say, demonstrated how wealth was consumed and how things that were produced could be exchanged for other things that people needed for enjoyment or accumulation (1803, I. xxii). In other words, wealth could be consumed either unproductively or reproductively. The following section focuses on the fifth book of Say’s Traité to explore the essence of consumption, as well as its two forms: reproductive and unproductive consumption.

2.3. The Essence of Consumption and its Separation into Reproductive and Unproductive Forms

In the Traité, Say argued that people could not use products without destroying them. He argued that when food was eaten or clothes were worn out, they ceased to exist, and this process of destruction was referred to as consumption (1803, I. vi). More specifically, for Say, consumption was the destruction of utility. Consuming was equivalent to destroying the use of things, and thereby the value of those things disappeared (1803, I. vi). He argued that the consumer was the last person through whose hands a product passed and that their use of this product consumed it. For Say, consuming was said not only of things that were used for food but also of things that were used for clothing, for pleasures. It was said of all things the value of which was altered in any way by the use people made of it. Thus, Say argued that people consumed silver earrings; like they consumed a hat or a dinner (1803, I. vi).

According to Say, anything that had an exchange value and was likely to be destroyed or lose its value through the use made of it was a thing capable of being consumed. He argued that a house, a vessel, and iron could be consumed like meat, bread, and clothing. Similarly, time and work could be consumed, since they had exchangeable value (1803, V. i). For Say, people only obtained the things they wanted to consume through exchange, namely, through purchase. However, it was not purchasing that impoverished them since it implied that one received a value equal to that which one gave. It was by consuming what had been purchased that the value was destroyed. Therefore, it was consumption that impoverished (1803, V. i).

Say also differentiated between reproductive and unproductive consumption (1803, V. ii). He explained that the advantage obtained from reproductive consumption was the gain, that is, the possession of a new product with a greater value than what was consumed. However, he indicated that reproductive consumption did not generally bear the name consumption (1803, V. iii). For Say, the word consumption could only properly be applied to sterile consumption, that is, the consumption which did not provide a value equal to or greater than that which it destroyed (1803, I. xiv).

For Say, the word consumption was used for what he termed unproductive consumption. The advantage obtained from unproductive consumption was the enjoyment attached to the satisfaction of a need (1803, V. ii). Things consumed to satisfy needs were lost to society, but they were usefully lost and fulfilled one of their purposes. The food that nourishes, the wood that heats, and the clothing that covers were destroyed, but their destruction did not take place without an advantage (1803, V. ii). In addition, Say distinguished luxury from unproductive consumption. Unproductive consumption encompassed the satisfaction of fundamental needs, while luxury only satisfied artificial needs. According to Say, luxury consisted of things that were used neither for their real utility, nor for their convenience, nor for the pleasure they gave, but only to dazzle the eyes and influence the opinion of others (1803, V. iv). Luxury destroyed by adding little or nothing to the well-being of those who consumed it. The value destroyed by conversion into a luxury could have contributed to the well-being of others if consumed in another form (1803, V. iv).

Among the categories of unproductive consumption, Say considered that there were both good and bad forms of consumption. The best consumption, for him, was the one that satisfied real needs, including the needs that conditioned existence, health, and contentment (1803, V. ii). Good consumption for the nation included the things that were convenient rather than splendid; for example, linen rather than lace; good clothes rather than embroidery (1803, V. ii). Say excluded from the category of unproductive consumption the luxury of ostentation, which he described as an empty satisfaction, unlike the luxury of convenience, which provided real satisfaction (1803, V. ii). Happiness could not be found in ostentation, according to Say. On the contrary, he argued that once the reasonable needs of life were satisfied, happiness could only be found in the moderate exercise of the faculties of the body and mind, and the sentiments of the soul (1803, V. iv). For Say, needs were unlimited and multiplied as they were satisfied: the man who had a jacket wanted a suit and he who had a suit wanted a frock coat (1803, V. iv). Yet, according to Say, there was a limit in people’s ability to find happiness in the satisfaction of their needs. The limit was reached once their reasonable needs were satisfied.

Good unproductive consumption also encompassed things that were slow to consume, but whose use was frequent rather than fast. According to Say, it was better to consume things of good quality, even if they were more expensive. Good unproductive consumption also included the consumption of things made in common, such as the services of a cook who could prepare a meal for one person or ten. Without elaborating, Say considered good unproductive consumption to be that which conformed to the laws of morality. Conversely, he described immoral consumption as prevalent where great opulence and poverty coexisted.

According to him, the excessive inequality of fortunes was contrary to good consumption. The more disproportionate the fortunes, the more artificial needs were satisfied in a nation compared to real needs (1803, V. ii). The distinction between moral and immoral forms of consumption remained in the subsequent editions of the Traité. However, Say did not elaborate on the subject, believing that proving the validity of this distinction would take him too far from his main topic (1814, III, iv).

Finally, Say explained that bad unproductive consumption included the consumption of things that caused sorrow and pain, rather than pleasure. He mentioned here the excesses of intemperance, such as wars undertaken out of revenge or those driven by love of vain glory (1803, V. ii).

For Say, then, unproductive consumption could be good as long as it satisfied real needs. Yet it did not enrich countries because it was a destruction of value. According to Say’s law, a nation’s increase in wealth depended on accumulation, and only reproductive consumption participated in the enrichment of countries. Say departed from Smith, for whom production arose from men’s desire to consume. For Say, the production caused by the desire to consume did nothing for the prosperity of the nation, because it increased neither the wealth of the nation nor that of its citizens. It could not be saved, since it was the desire not to save that gave birth to it. Production driven by the desire to consume could result in an increase in pleasure for the consuming class, but not an increase in wealth (1803, V. iv).

Nevertheless, in the sixth edition of the Traité published posthumously in 1841, Say acknowledged that needs could be satiated, as increasing consumption led to a decrease in needs. In the nineteenth century, the limits to enrichment lay in the existence of non-reproducible resources, such as the scarcity of land and the saturation of needs (Béraud 1993, 478). Say argued that the development of tastes and needs had to be encouraged since they gave rise to the desire to consume among the population. The general and constant needs of a nation drove it to produce in order to purchase more. This production gave rise to constantly renewed consumption, which was favourable to the well-being of families. Still, consumption resulted from the people’s ability to purchase more goods enabled by production (1841, I).

Say’s influence on the development of political economy in Britain and America was greater than that of Ricardo (Tribe 2022), although he is not often treated as such. Moreover, while scholarship on Say has predominantly focused on Say’s law, relatively little attention has been given to his fifth book on consumption and the consequences it had for the development of political economy after him. The following section demonstrates how the concepts of reproductive and unproductive consumption were sometimes used and sometimes ignored by subsequent British political economists. It examines their treatment of these concepts when addressing practical societal issues, such as overproduction crises or when developing the principles of political economy – particularly the laws governing the consumption of wealth.

3.1. Debates on Gluts and James Mill’s “On Consumption” (1808)

Spence’s pamphlet was published after Napoleon Bonaparte allegedly called Britain “a nation of shopkeepers” (1807, 1). According to Spence, since Napoleon could not invade Britain, his only remaining option was to halt commerce (1807, 2). Drawing on the authority of the French physiocrat François Quesnay (1694–1774), Spence’s pamphlet aimed to demonstrate that Britain’s greatness was “independent of [its] commerce” (1807, 3), as agriculture was the true driving force of its economy. Cosimo Perrotta (2018) argues that Spence drew on Quesnay’s defence of landlords’ luxury to support his underconsumption view. However, Van Den Berg (2009) contends that Spence likely had a limited understanding of Quesnay and the French économistes. Indeed, Spence did not speak French and never cited specific passages from physiocratic writers. Instead, he was more likely influenced by physiocratic theories translated by earlier British authors and by Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

For Spence, civilised society was composed of four classes: the landowners, the cultivators, the manufacturers and the unproductive class.⁴ Agriculture and manufacturing were essential for increasing the nation’s wealth and prosperity, but the driving force behind them lay with the landowning class. The manufacturing and unproductive classes appropriated funds from the expenditure of the landowners, using them to purchase the necessary food from the land’s cultivators. In turn, the cultivators could pay rent to the landowners from the sale of their produce to the manufacturing and unproductive classes. The production of national wealth depended on the expenditures of the landowning class. Landowners were the sole recipients of the revenue derived from land, which constituted the nation’s entire revenue. This revenue had to be spent, as it was essential to the creation of national wealth. Increasing the consumption of the landowning class would have positive distributional effects on the other classes, contributing to the overall increase in national wealth. Therefore, the landowners needed to increase their consumption of luxuries. Spence was also convinced that most of Britain’s imports consisted of superfluous luxuries, for which the country exported many valuable necessities. These luxuries had to be produced domestically rather than imported in exchange for the necessities of life.

James Mill (1773–1836) responded to Spence’s pamphlet in his book Commerce Defended (1808). In the chapter on consumption, he criticised Spence’s assumptions that land was the sole source of wealth and that landowners were the exclusive proprietors of the nation’s total revenue. Mill argued that both manufacturing and commerce were important sources of wealth. He believed Spence’s doctrine was flawed because Spence confused “the double meaning of an ambiguous term,” namely, consumption. For Mill, “the two senses of the word ‘consumption’ are not a little remarkable.” He distinguished between two forms of consumption: unproductive consumption, which he associated with “extinction,” “annihilation,” or “destruction,” and reproductive consumption, which he associated with “renovation” and “increase” (1808, 34). Mill also referred to consumption for the sake of reproduction as “employment.” According to Mill, Spence’s conclusions were incorrect precisely because of this confusion between the different meanings of consumption. From this distinction, James Mill argued that countries should focus on reproductive consumption, or employment, rather than unproductive consumption:

… it is of importance to the interests of the country, that as much as possible of its annual produce should be employed, but as little as possible of it consumed. The whole produce of every country is distributed into two great parts; that which is destined to be employed for the purpose of reproduction, and that which is destined to be consumed. That part, which is destined to serve for reproduction, naturally appears again next year, with its profit. This reproduction, with the profit, is naturally the whole produce of the country for that year (1808, p. 35).

According to Mill, Spence’s doctrine was false because he referred to consumption as what James Mill called “consumption properly so called, or dead unproductive consumption” (1808, 35). This clarification led Mill to analyse the conditions that favoured the nation’s prosperity. For Mill, “when the produce of each year is greater than that of the preceding, the wealth of the country is advancing” (1808, 36). He acknowledged that the factor driving the increase in a country’s annual produce was “the increase of that division of the annual produce, which is destined to administer to reproduction” (1808, 36). On the other hand, if “a greater than the usual proportion of the annual produce is withdrawn from the business of reproduction, and devoted to consumption, the produce of the succeeding year becomes necessarily diminished, and as long as this consumption continues, the affairs of the country are retrograde” (1808, 36). Mill argued that the continuance of wars, which Say regarded as a bad form of unproductive consumption, led to inequality between fortunes. As a result, they caused the majority of people to have “no occasion to devote themselves to any useful pursuit” (1808, 36). Wars brought nations to a stationary state and eventually led them into regress.

Finally, Mill responded to Spence’s concerns about crises of overproduction. According to Mill, “the production of commodities creates and is the one and universal cause which creates a market for the commodities produced” (1808, 36). Following Say’s loi des débouchés, Mill argued that “whatever be the additional quantity of goods therefore which is at any time created in any country, an additional power of purchasing, exactly equivalent, is at the same instant created; so that a nation can never be naturally overstocked either with capital or with commodities; as the very operation of capital makes a vent for its produce” (1808, 39). According to Mill, the whole of the commodities in a country will always be exchanged,

the one half against the other; and the market will always be equal to the supply. Thus, it appears that the demand of a nation is always equal to the produce of a nation. This indeed must be so; for what is the demand of a nation? The demand of a nation is exactly its power of purchasing. But what is its power of purchasing? The extent undoubtedly of its annual produce. The extent of its demand therefore and the extent of its supply are always exactly commensurate (1808, 39).

Mill argued that there could never be too many commodities in general. However, he acknowledged that there could be a temporary excess of any one commodity in a nation, implying that other commodities may not be provided in sufficient proportion (1808, 40). Mill concluded the chapter on consumption by emphasising the importance for every community to increase the portion of the annual produce that was reproductively consumed. The progressive state of society was one where wages of the labouring class were sufficient not only to maintain their current numbers but also to increase them. This state resulted from continual additions to the country’s capital or to that portion of the annual produce dedicated to reproductive consumption.

The distinction between reproductive and unproductive consumption enabled political economists to address crises of overproduction by focusing on reproductive consumption as the primary determinant of the increase in wealth. The focus on reproductive consumption contributed to overshadowing unproductive consumption, that is, the form of consumption concerned with the satisfaction of needs. This overshadowing of unproductive consumption was amplified as political economists developed the deductive science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The aim of the new science of political economy gradually shifted towards the increase and accumulation of wealth, replacing the previous goal of political oeconomia, which was the satisfaction of the population’s needs and wants. The next section shows that Ricardo’s focus on deductive principles – developed initially to argue against the Corn Laws – led to the obscuring of consumption within political economy.

3.2. Ricardo’s Obscuring of Consumption

In the early nineteenth century, frequent wars and blockades disrupted trade between Britain and Continental Europe and resulted in significant fluctuations in grain prices (Allen 2017, 93). Between 1798 and 1802, the price of wheat doubled, rising from 51s. 10d. per quarter in 1798 to 119s. 6d., before falling back to 69s. 10d. in 1802 (Backhouse and Tribe 2014, 433). The price of grain remained high in Britain during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), largely due to the system of bounties on grain exports established by the British government in 1804, which remained in place until 1814 (Backhouse and Tribe 2014, 433). Shortly after Napoleon’s defeat in Waterloo in 1815, the Corn Laws were passed, which, according to Robert Allen, were “one of the great acts of aristocratic self-interest” (Allen 2017, 93). The British Corn Laws were parliamentary statutes designed to regulate the corn trade in favour of producers during times of abundance and low prices (Hilton 1987). It was one of the most significant legislative acts challenged by political economists in the early nineteenth century. The laws aimed to encourage domestic production by setting a threshold of 80s. per quarter. Above this price, grain could be freely imported, but below it, imports were prohibited. As a result, the price of grain was 30% higher than the 51s. 10d. of 1798 (Hilton 1987).

3.3. The Laws of the Consumption of Wealth

J. Mill drew a distinction between political economy and domestic economy in his Elements of Political Economy. According to Mill, “political economy is to the state, what domestic economy is to the family”⁵ (1821, 1). Domestic economy was an art for James Mill. He claimed that “the art of him who manages a family consists in regulating the supply and consumption of those things which cannot be obtained but with cost.” The object of domestic economy was the consumption and supply of the family, and “the consumption being a quantity always indefinite, for there is no end to the desire of enjoyment, the grand concern is to increase the supply” (1821, 1). J. Mill did not further elaborate on the art of domestic economy, but it was passed on to his son, John Stuart (see Villeneuve 2024). The object of political economy was “the consumption of the community, and that supply upon which the consumption depends” (Mill 1821, 1). Political economy aimed to determine the laws that regulated the production of commodities, as well as their distribution, exchange and consumption. Of these four operations: production, distribution, exchange, and consumption, the first three were “means to some end” and “that end is consumption” (Mill 1821, 177).

The laws of the consumption of wealth included two “species” for Mill: productive and unproductive consumption (1821, 178). Productive consumption was said of “what is expended for the sake of something to be produced” and was “a means to production” (1821, 180). It encompassed “the necessaries of the labourer” and more generally “all that his wages enable him to consume,” whether for the preservation of his existence or enjoyment. Productive consumption also included “machinery” such as tools, buildings and cattle and “materials,” such as wool, flax, drugs or coals, which were necessary components of the final product (1821, 179). Mill argued that by productive consumption nothing was lost, “if one thing is destroyed, another one is by that means produced” (1821, 180). Unproductive consumption was said of the things “consumed without producing or without any view to production” such as “the wine, which he purchases, and uses at his table, is a commodity which he consumes unproductively.” Unproductive consumption was not a means but the end: “this, or the enjoyment which is involved in it, is the good which constituted the motive to all operations by which it was preceded” (1821, 180). Mill argued that unproductive consumption was a loss, a diminution of property, both for the individual and the community because “the commodity perishes in the using, and all that is derived is the good, the pleasure, the satisfaction, which the using of it yields” (1821, 181). For J. Mill, everything that was produced was used for immediate enjoyment, that is, consumed unproductively, or for ultimate profit, that is, consumed productively (1821, 184). Production was the “sole cause of demand” (1821, 195), and what was annually produced was annually consumed. Therefore, the amount of the annual produce could never exceed the amount of annual demand, echoing the idea that Quesnay identified in his Tableau Économique a few decades earlier. For Quesnay and the économistes, there was a natural circular flow uniting the classes of society through income and expenditures (Tribe 2015, 45).

The laws of consumption of wealth were adopted by other British political economists such as John Ramsey McCulloch and Harriet Martineau. John Ramsey McCulloch (1789–1864) wrote the entry “Political Economy” for the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1824). The article formed the ground-work for his Principles of Political Economy (1825). McCulloch defined political economy as “the science of the laws which regulate the production, distribution and consumption of these material products which have exchangeable value, and which are either necessary, useful, or agreeable to man” (1825, 9). McCulloch argued that political economists used the word consumption in the sense of “use” (1825, 205). Yet consumption for him was also “the annihilation of those qualities which render commodities useful and desirable” (1825, 205). Consumption was a destruction for McCulloch who stated that “we produce commodities only that we may be able to use or consume them” (1825, p. 205). Consumption was “the great end and object of all human industry. Production is merely a means to attain an end” (1825, 205). Besides, “the true and only real encouragement of industry consists, not in the increase of wasteful and improvident consumption, but as was formerly shown, in the increase of production” (1825, 217). The laws of consumption were similarly adopted by Harriet Martineau (1802–1876), who aimed to popularise the principles of political economy in her Illustrations of Political Economy (1832). In her tale “Briery Creek” (1832), she explained the distinction between productive and unproductive consumption. She stated that “having illustrated the leading principles which regulate the Production, Distribution and Exchange of Wealth, we proceed to consider the laws of its Consumption. Of these four operations, the three first are means to the attainment of the last as an end” (1832, 153).

The triad of production, distribution, and consumption, established within the work of British political economists, positioned Say’s Traité as the leading textbook in the field, rather than Ricardo’s Principles. The prominence of Say’s Traité was primarily due to the economic category of consumption, which transformed into the laws of the consumption of wealth in the early nineteenth century. While British political economists regarded the laws of the consumption of wealth as the end of the three other activities, these laws also encompassed the concept of productive consumption. However, productive consumption for them was a means to an end. As argued by Say, Ricardo, and J. Mill, productive consumption was not consumption in the proper sense and should instead be referred to as employment. On the other hand, they did not thoroughly investigate the real end that the laws of consumption were meant to focus on, namely, unproductive consumption.

The confusions surrounding these laws of the consumption of wealth were first addressed by Nassau William Senior (1790–1864) at Oxford. Senior sought to develop the deductive principles of the science while also defending the institutions against the radical proposals of Ricardo and J. Mill (Maas 2014, 13). In his Outline of the Science of Political Economy, Senior contended that political economy treated of the “nature, the production and the distribution of Wealth” (1836, 129), excluding consumption from the definition of the science. For Senior, political economists defined consumption as the destruction of wealth and the ultimate object of all production (1836, 151). Yet he argued that destruction was not the purpose of production. All that was produced was destroyed but “it is produced for the purpose of being made use of. Its destruction is an incident to its use, not only not intended, but, as far as possible, avoided” (1836, 151). The most essential things, like food, were instantly destroyed in the act of using them, explaining why the word consumption had been applied universally to express the making use of anything. However, other things were produced that seemed impossible to destroy in the use, at least not in the short run – like a statue in a gallery (1836, 151). For Senior, it was wrong to see consumption, in the sense of destruction, as the ultimate end of production. He argued that the expression “to use” should be substituted for that “to consume” which would be an improvement in the language of political economy. Yet the nomenclature was difficult to change so the word consumption should continue to be used, “premising that we use it to signify primarily the making use of a thing; a circumstance to which its destruction is generally, but not necessarily, incidental” (1836, 151). John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) further clarified the confusions surrounding the laws of the consumption of wealth in his essay on the methodology of political economy, published in 1836. The unproductive form of consumption associated with waste and destruction, even though its purpose was the satisfaction of needs, was integrated into the domestic sphere of the economy and cut off from the political economic one (see Villeneuve 2024).

Later in the century, the political economist Cliffe Leslie (1825–1882) observed that two variants of political economy claimed to descend from Smith in the early nineteenth century (Leslie 1888). The previous sections focused on the first variant along the lines of Say, Ricardo and J. Mill, which relied exclusively on deductive laws or principles. In their endeavour to develop a more abstract science of political economy, these political economists departed from Smith’s analysis and methodology. Smith had considered the psychological and moral motivations of human actions that led to production and consumption. The rupture with Smith’s moral framework played a role in shifting perspectives on consumption in the early nineteenth century. The other variant that claimed to descend from Smith was that of Thomas Robert Malthus. By the time Say, Mill, and Ricardo made their contributions to political economy, Malthus had already made a significant impact on economic issues. In the early nineteenth century, he followed other political economists and organised his system into principles. Yet his political economy continued the trajectory set by Smith and Hume, acknowledging the place of the desire to consume and the psychological foundations of consumption. These elements were carried into the work of J.S. Mill. Malthus is the object of the following section to highlight the place of the desire to consume in his political economy.