Bernard Mandeville

Dutch-British physician and satirist — author of The Fable of the Bees — who argued that private vices (greed, luxury, self-interest) produce public benefits — anticipating Adam Smith's invisible hand and providing the first systematic defense of commercial society.

Creates the private vices / public benefits argument — Mandeville's argument (that individual self-interested behavior in commercial society produces collective prosperity that virtuous behavior would prevent) is the most provocative and influential early formulation of what became classical economics.