About this book
Groundbreaking and quietly radical, Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic by William Petty collects the 17th‑century thinker’s pioneering reflections on population, wealth, and state policy. Petty’s essays—ranging from studies on the growth of London and the Dublin bills to his systematic “political arithmetic” experiments and the companion piece by Gregory King—apply numerical estimates and practical observation to questions of taxation, public finance, and national prosperity.
Set against the turbulence of Civil War and early modern state-building, Petty’s work helped invent the tools of political economy and nascent statistics: headcounts, valuations of land and labor, and crude accounting of national income. The tone is analytic and empirical rather than theoretical, mixing practical proposals for governance with wide‑ranging detours into urban growth, commerce, and demographic change. Readers will hear the origins of ideas that later shaped modern economics, public policy, and statistical thinking.
Ideal for listeners interested in Economics/Political Economy, economic history, or the history of statistics, this audiobook illuminates how measurement and numbers began to shape government decisions—and why Petty still matters for anyone curious about the roots of economic policy and data‑driven governance.
