Sir William Petty

British economist. Born to a weaver in Ramsey, a small town in southern England. At the age of 14, he became a sailor and traveled to France, where he studied various languages ​​and navigation at a Jesuit college. He returned to England and joined the army, but when the Puritan Revolution broke out, he traveled to Holland to study medicine and mathematics, and then moved to Paris, where he became acquainted with the exiled Hobbes and joined a natural sciences circle of famous scholars. After the revolution ended, he returned to England and became famous for inventing a copying machine, and in 1651 he was appointed professor of anatomy at Oxford University. However, shortly after that, he was appointed by the Cromwell government as a military surgeon for the Irish Expeditionary Force, and traveled to Ireland, where he surveyed the land confiscated from the rebels and distributed it to Protestants in England, becoming a large landowner himself. After the Restoration, he was knighted and held various government positions related to Ireland, and also participated in the founding of the Royal Society, becoming its president.

As an economist, he advocated state-led growth of national wealth and placed emphasis on shipping, colonial policy, and public credit, and is considered a mercantilist in terms of his policy stance, but he is also considered the founder of modern economics in terms of his theories and methods. In other words, when analyzing social phenomena, he focused on objective quantitative relationships and tried to elucidate what could be called the natural laws of the social body, and he himself named his method "political arithmetic" or "political anatomy." He is considered to be the founder of modern statistics, econometrics, and finance. He also developed the labor theory of value, which is expressed in the famous phrase, "Labor is the father of wealth, and the earth is its mother," and is considered by Marx to be the founder of British classical economics. His major works include "On Taxes and Tributes" (1662), "Political Arithmetic" (1690), and "The Political Anatomy of Ireland" (1691).

[Senga Shigeyoshi]

"William Petty" by Shichiro Matsukawa (Expanded edition, 1967, Iwanami Shoten)" ▽ "On Taxation and Tributes, Political Arithmetic, translated by Heibei Ouchi and Shichiro Matsukawa (Iwanami Bunko)" ▽ "The Political Anatomy of Ireland, translated by Shichiro Matsukawa (Iwanami Bunko)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

イギリスの経済学者。南イングランドの小都市ラムジーの織元の子として生まれる。14歳のころ水夫となってフランスに渡り、イエズス会のカレッジなどで各種の語学、航海術などを学んだ。いったん帰国して軍隊に入ったが、清教徒革命が勃発(ぼっぱつ)するや、オランダに遊学し、医学、数学を学び、さらにパリに移り、亡命中のホッブズの知遇を得て、著名な学者たちの集まる自然研究のサークルに参加。革命の終結後帰国、複写器を発明して著名となり、1651年オックスフォード大学の解剖学教授の地位を得た。しかしその直後に、クロムウェル政府からアイルランド派遣軍の軍医に任命され渡航、反乱軍から没収した土地の測量やそれらの本国新教徒への配分に携わり、自らも大土地所有者となった。王政復古後、ナイトに列せられ、アイルランド関係のさまざまな官職につき、また王立協会の創設に参加し、同会会長になった。

　経済学者としては、国家主導による国富増進を唱えて、海運、植民政策、公信用を重視したことなどから、政策的立場は重商主義者とみなされるが、その理論や方法においては、近代的な経済学の始祖ともみなされる。すなわち、社会現象の分析にあたって、客観的な数量的諸関係に着目して、社会体の自然法則ともいうべきものを解明しようとして、そうした方法を自ら「政治算術」または「政治的解剖」と名づけ、近代統計学、計量経済学、財政学の創設者と評価されるからである。また「労働は富の父であり、土地はその母である」という有名な一句で示された労働価値論を展開し、マルクスによって、イギリス古典派経済学の始祖とも評価されている。主著には『租税貢納論』（1662）、『政治算術』（1690）、『アイルランドの政治的解剖』（1691）などがある。

［千賀重義］

『松川七郎著『ウィリアム・ペティ』（増補版・1967・岩波書店）』▽『大内兵衛・松川七郎訳『租税貢納論』『政治算術』（岩波文庫）』▽『松川七郎訳『アイァランドの政治的解剖』（岩波文庫）』

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