William Petty and colonialism:

a critique of pluralism in the secondary literature.

Paper for the

Annual Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics,

London School of Economics and University College London,

London, 14-16 July 2006.

 

Hugh Goodacre

Abstract

The writings of William Petty (1623-87) prefigure, in primitive form, much of the conceptual and analytical apparatus of today’s economics, and indeed of a number of other social science disciplines besides, while at the same time explicitly and unblushingly advocating predatory colonialism, genocide and slavery. Yet the secondary literature on Petty has hitherto failed to generate an unequivocally anti-colonialist response to this aspect of the intellectual ancestry of modern social science, raising questions about the adequacy of the approach not only of the economic orthodoxy, but also of heterodox currents which advocate pluralism as a general critical principle.

 

Introduction.

1. Biographical and historical background.

2. Anti-colonialist responses: history, historians, literature.

3. Economics: pluralism under siege.

4. Disciplines neighbouring economics: pluralism to the fore.

Conclusions.