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Global Utilitarianism. Labor, Coercion, and Freedom in Benthamite thought and practices (Britain, Russia, India), 1770-1860

November 13, 2015 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

The Jordan Center’s Colloquium Series serves to introduce the most recent work of scholars within the Slavic field. Participants come from universities across the country and abroad, and work in disciplines ranging from history, political science and anthropology to literature and film. In this session of the Fall 2015 Colloquium Series, Alessandro Stanziani will join us from École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) to speak on “Global Utilitarianism. Labor, Coercion, and Freedom in Benthamite thought and practices (Britain, Russia, India), 1770-1860.”

The attempt to identify the forms of coercion and bondage that existed in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Russia and India raises several intellectual and political questions, starting with the policies that were adopted towards these countries. In any event, the British values of freedom and the protection of human rights were deemed universal. At the same time, this universalist view was shattered when it came to India. The debate over how to qualify the forms of dependence and labor in India intensified in the first half of the nineteenth century and intersected with the debate over orientalism on the one hand, and the forms of sovereignty (direct rule, indirect rule, protectorate) on the other. The issues raised by Russia were at once similar and different. The specific features of serfdom were open to discussion when compared with those of colonial slavery; at the same time, as the abolitionists had no direct control in the case of Russia, they could do little but attempt to influence British diplomatic attitudes towards the country.

The political economists of the time, and Bentham in particular, took part in these debates; free labor was compared with bondage in terms of utility and efficiency as well as broader ethical principles. The problem, as Bentham saw it, lay precisely in choosing between two ways of thinking: first the universalist approach, which meant adopting the same principles everywhere – in Britain, India and Russia – thereby providing the grounds on which labor and its institutions should be evaluated. The other, more particularist approach, was open to distinctions among these three cases. In the end, Bentham opted for the first approach; yet surprisingly (at least compared with the images we have of it today), he thought that Russian serfdom offered an interesting solution to the problem of labor control. It was precisely in Russia that he invented his Panopticon. From that point, he went on to adopt complex, shifting attitudes towards India. We are going to retrace the development of these approaches, together with the various ways they were interpreted until around the mid-nineteenth century.

Alessandro Stanziani is a Professor of Global History at EHESS and is a Research Director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Naples (1991) and a PhD in History from EHESS (1995). His interests and fields include: Russian history (16th-20th centuries); serfdom, slavery in inner Asia, economic growth; labor in the Indian Ocean (18th-19th centuries); economic, business and labor history in Europe (France, Britain) in the early 18th-20th centuries; food history (18th-20th centuries).

 

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Details

Date:
November 13, 2015
Time:
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Event Categories:
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Organizer

Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
Phone
(212) 992-6575
Email
jordan.russia.center@nyu.edu
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Venue

NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
19 University Place, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003 United States
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Phone
212.992.6575