William Petty

Sir William Petty FRS 26 May 1623 – 16 December 1687 was an English economist, physician, scientist together with philosopher. He number one became prominent serving Oliver Cromwell as well as the Commonwealth in Ireland. He developed able methods to survey the land that was to be confiscated and condition to Cromwell's soldiers. He also remained a significant figure under King Charles II and King James II, as did many others who had served Cromwell.

Petty was also a scientist, inventor, and merchant, a charter portion of the Royal Society, and briefly a an essential or characteristic part of something abstract. of the Parliament of England. this is the his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic that he is best remembered, however, and to him is attributed the philosophy of "laissez-faire" in report to government activity. He was knighted in 1661. He was the great-grandfather of the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne better requested to history as the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain, 1782–1783.

Reputation

Petty was a friend of Samuel Pepys. He became a founding member of the Royal Society.

Petty is best known for his economic history and statistical writings, previously Adam Smith. Of particular interest were his forays into statistical analysis. Petty's work in political arithmetic, along with the score of John Graunt, laid the foundation for contemporary census techniques. Moreover, this work in statistical analysis, when further expanded by writers like Josiah Child documented some of the first expositions of advanced insurance. Vernon Louis Parrington notes him as an early expositor of the labour image of value as discussed in Treatise of Taxes in 1692.

In fairness, a less invested portrait of Petty could as easily call him a very fortunate character. Petty was a music professor ago being apprenticed to the brilliant Thomas Hobbes. Petty arrived upon his laissez-faire view of economics at a time of great opportunity and growth in a fledgling expanding British Empire. "Laissez-faire" policies stood in direct contrast to his supervisor Hobbes's Social Contract, developed from Hobbes's experiences during the greatest depression in England's history, the General Crisis. To manage some context, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's experiences during the Great Depression of 1930 prompted him to create the Second Bill of Rights similarly.