William Petty - Laissez-faire Governance

Laissez-faire Governance

This is one of the major themes of Petty’s writings, summed up by his use of the phrase vadere sicut vult, whence we get laissez-faire. As mentioned earlier, the motif of medicine was also useful to Petty, and he warned against over-interference by the government in the economy, seeing it as analogous to a physician tampering excessively with his patient. He applied this to monopolies, controls on the exportation of money and on the trade of commodities. They were, to him, vain and harmful to a nation. He recognized the price effects of monopolies, citing the French king’s salt monopoly as an example. In another work, Political Arithmetic, Petty also recognized the importance of economies of scale. He described the phenomenon of the division of labour, asserting that a good is both of better quality and cheaper, if many work on it. Petty said that the gain is greater 'as the manufacture itself is greater'.