In 1821, John Bowring published, probably with only his own additions, a manuscript of Bentham's under the title of Observations on the restrictive and prohibitory commercial system: especially with a reference to the Decree of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820. It seems likely that Bentham's text was originally conceived as an appendix to a work that Bentham never published, ‘Rid Yourselves of Ultramaria’, a commentary on Spanish colonization.

Expondré a continuación algunas notas sobre el pensamiento económico en América Latina a finales del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX. Me referiré al pensamiento ilustrado y al mercantilismo, y haré entrar a una filosofía que ejerció bastante influencia entonces -con particular relevancia desde finales de la década de 1810- en España e Iberoamérica, en un episodio poco estudiado en la historia de las ideas: el utilitarismo.

Hailed as the most influential book ever written in favor of freedom, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty is a contradictory and imprecise work. Mill’s notion of liberty coexists with anti-liberal ideas. He defended the private property of capitalists, but not of landowners. He criticized protectionism, but made an exception for infant industries. He defended competition, but set limits on it. He criticized general public education, but allowed the State to force citizens to study. He defended women and men’s freedom, but (...) not the freedom to choose the number of children they wanted to have, or decide about their education, or bequeath goods to them. He said parting from laissez faire was bad unless it produced some good. This admired friend of liberty could not find the logic in family, marriage, religion, tradition, morality, custom; he saw them only as repressive obstacles to freedom. A book supposedly upholding liberty ignores or disdains natural or pre-legal rights, and directs the bulk of its criticism not against the legal or political power of the State but against the tyranny of public opinion. (shrink)

La correspondencia bolivariana de Jeremías Bentham revela las razones del interés del filósofo inglés por la lucha emancipadora en la América hispana, así como alguna de las reacciones de los hispanoamericanos ante las ideas utilitaristas.