ABSTRACT
The analogies which William Petty writings present with the economic thought of later periods–not least in the field of fiscal theory–are indeed striking, and his innovative mode of reasoning is of incalculable significance for subsequent methodological developments. As the foregoing account of his life and activities has already suggested, Petty's writings are, clearly, to be situated within this process of the ideological, cultural and linguistic resources for the developments which were to culminate in the consolidation of the fiscal-military state in the period following his death. Petty's writings on fiscal affairs address the whole range of taxes being levied or discussed during his lifetime, when the state was still "struggling to supply its coffers by forms of assessment that had come down from the middle ages". The concept of the operation of law, or 'natural law', in the flow of trade was already a "commonplace" by Petty's time, 285 and his writings abound in references to such laws governing economic life.
