English

Noun

political arithmetic ‎(uncountable)

1. (now archaic or historical) The demographic statistics of a country or state. [from 17th c.]
   • 1776, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations:

     I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.

   • 2012, Faramerz Dabhoiwala, The Origins of Sex, Penguin 2013, p. 221:

     The most basic effect of political arithmetic was namely to establish that a nation's strength depended above all on the number of inhabitants [...].