Happiness: What Kahneman could have learnt from Pietro Verri

Pietro Verri’s (1728-1797) work on Political Economy has received considerable attention in recent years and the first variorum edition of his works is in the course of publication. Volume 3 of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Pietro Verri was published in December 2004; it contains the first variorum edition of Verri’s Discorsi of 1781, where Verri edits together in a single volume: 1. his work on the nature of pleasure and pain, 2. his pamphlet on happiness and 3. his book on political economy. This paper demonstrates the intimate unity of those three works which, in general, have been discussed separately so far. The variorum edition brings into full light the work done by Verri, in particular, on the text of his Political economy through the various editions. An understanding of the unity of Verri’s three works shows that cognitivism has been a fact since the beginning of modern economics, although economists happen to have lost trace of it through the decades. It is certainly not accidental that today’s cognitive perspective, through the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, should lead directly to new and original studies on economics and happiness in a utilitarian perspective. It is argued that Verri’s own research program is resurrected and that studying Verri provides a clue to a fuller understanding of latter-day cognitivism. Besides providing a review of some of the recent contributions, this paper offers a reconstruction of Verri’s political economy, mainly on the basis of his Meditazioni sulla economia politica of 1771, a book which was known to Adam Smith. Schumpeter’s description of Verri as ‘the most important pre-Smithian author on Cheapness-and-Plenty’ is fully vindicated. In particular, cheapness, or low price, as the result of industry – in Verri’s view – can well be brought about via an increase of the quantity of money.