Why John Stuart Mill should not be enlisted among neoclassical economists

Dimitris Sotiropoulos

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2009, vol. 16, issue 3, 455-473

Abstract: While John Stuart Mill was not unwilling to identify with the philosophical approach of utilitarianism, he nonetheless distanced himself from utilitarianism as conceived by Bentham. He rejected all the assumptions that led the latter to advocate a felicific calculus. He thus constructed his economic system on the basis of a different empirical economic anthropology to that found in the analyses of Jevons, Marshall, Walras and Menger, all of which derive from Bentham's reasoning. This, essentially, is why it is not justifiable to include J. S. Mill in the pantheon of neoclassicism.

Keywords: Utilitarianism; neoclassical or marginal revolution; J. S. Mill; Bentham; classical political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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DOI: 10.1080/09672560903101328

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