ABSTRACT
This chapter consists, primarily, of a correlation of aspects of William Petty's writings on Ireland with Karl Marx's theory of the role of colonialism in the primitive accumulation of capital. The first phase in Petty's perspective on labour in Ireland can readily be associated with the orientation he adopted with respect to the factional struggles within the colonial establishment in the Cromwellian period. It was only subsequently that Petty's attention shifted to the issue of wage labour and value, a shift which represented a second and distinct phase in his perspective on labour. The chapter shows that his writings provide a valuable historical vantage point from which to assess the extent to which development economics has, or has not, surmounted the intellectual legacy of colonialist thought and moved forward to the construction of a truly post-colonial perspective on economic development in the world today.
