Bernard Mandeville's 1714 satirical poem and prose commentary — arguing that a prosperous hive of bees is built on private vices (envy, luxury, fraud) and that making the hive virtuous destroys its prosperity — the most provocative early defense of commercial society.
Creates the paradox of commercial virtue — Mandeville's demonstration that prosperity requires the motivations Stoic and Christian morality condemned (greed, vanity, envy) forced moral philosophers to either condemn commercial society or revise their moral categories; Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is partly a response to this challenge.
No recorded contemporaries.
Discussing
Ask anything about The Fable of the Bees — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.
Sign in to start a conversation.