In his lectures on governmentality, Foucault argued that Early Modern Period's political theorizing was characterized by a gradual change in the object of political power, from territories to populations. We try to link this idea to the development of seventeenth-century British economic thought, in which notions of population management are constantly present - beginning with early pamphleteers like Mun and Misselden, developing along the subsequent decades in a close relationship with doctrines such as the "political arithmetic" envisaged by Petty, and culminating in the extensive use made by Davenant of the demographic statistics compiled by Gregory King. Moreover, we try to expose the connection between demographic themes and some key concepts then adopted, in an effort to show that they were not mere subsidiaries to military concerns, but instead were a direct corollary to a widespread notion of labor as a creative force arguably the rudimentary origins of a labor theory of value.
Mercantilism; Population; Seventeenth century; Labor theory of value; William Petty