Ricorocks
SELF BANNED
- Mar 30, 2014
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Is there good in Greed? Comments Encouraged!
Bernard Mandeville, in his scandalous book, The Fable of the Bees. As the title promises, the book opens with a lengthy allegorical poem about a thriving beehive that bore more than a passing resemblance to the England Mandeville called home.
Inside the hive, industry flourished, the arts and sciences steadily advanced, and prosperity reigned. What made for such a boon? Not virtue, Mandeville contended. Instead, the lust for power and the vanity that attends personal success kept the wheels of commerce turning:
Passages like this one provide the intellectual origins for the moral mandate of self-interest. The contention underlying it is so familiar to us that it bears emphasizing how shocking and counterintuitive it seemed to Mandeville’s readers. On his account, the fate of the poor and vulnerable rests not with our best intentions, but with our worst.
A vile tide lifts all boats.
Yet Mandeville went ever further. He not only asserted that private vices yield public benefits, he contended that the inverse relationship between wickedness and wealth amounted to an iron law of human affairs. The achievements of an advanced society could only be maintained by immoral longings.Mandeville makes this point in the poem when “Jove” gets fed up with the hypocrisy of the bees wringing their hands over vice while enjoying the ease and luxury it supplies. Deciding to teach them a lesson, he relieves the bees of their wanton ways. “Honesty fills all their Hearts,” and the economy of the hive promptly begins to sputter. With the bees no longer motivated by baser passions, the taverns shut down, the retailers go bankrupt, and the courthouses are closed for business. The industry that remains is so small it can no longer support so many bees. The population swiftly declines, leaving the hive vulnerable to its enemies. They attack, and though the courage of the bees saves them from destruction (virtue, it appears, has something to commend it) they are forced to retreat from their spacious hive and take refuge in a hollow tree. The moral, for Mandeville, is clear:
Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live,
While we the Benefits receive
Bernard Mandeville, in his scandalous book, The Fable of the Bees. As the title promises, the book opens with a lengthy allegorical poem about a thriving beehive that bore more than a passing resemblance to the England Mandeville called home.
Inside the hive, industry flourished, the arts and sciences steadily advanced, and prosperity reigned. What made for such a boon? Not virtue, Mandeville contended. Instead, the lust for power and the vanity that attends personal success kept the wheels of commerce turning:
Passages like this one provide the intellectual origins for the moral mandate of self-interest. The contention underlying it is so familiar to us that it bears emphasizing how shocking and counterintuitive it seemed to Mandeville’s readers. On his account, the fate of the poor and vulnerable rests not with our best intentions, but with our worst.
A vile tide lifts all boats.
Yet Mandeville went ever further. He not only asserted that private vices yield public benefits, he contended that the inverse relationship between wickedness and wealth amounted to an iron law of human affairs. The achievements of an advanced society could only be maintained by immoral longings.Mandeville makes this point in the poem when “Jove” gets fed up with the hypocrisy of the bees wringing their hands over vice while enjoying the ease and luxury it supplies. Deciding to teach them a lesson, he relieves the bees of their wanton ways. “Honesty fills all their Hearts,” and the economy of the hive promptly begins to sputter. With the bees no longer motivated by baser passions, the taverns shut down, the retailers go bankrupt, and the courthouses are closed for business. The industry that remains is so small it can no longer support so many bees. The population swiftly declines, leaving the hive vulnerable to its enemies. They attack, and though the courage of the bees saves them from destruction (virtue, it appears, has something to commend it) they are forced to retreat from their spacious hive and take refuge in a hollow tree. The moral, for Mandeville, is clear:
Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live,
While we the Benefits receive
