Fable of the bees
Mandeville deliberately challenged the prevailing moral and religious orthodoxy of his day. He set forward the notion that it was self-interest, greed and vanity, thought of as wicked, that actually drove human achievements such as industry commerce and prosperity.
When the bees were driven by these ‘vices,’ the hive prospered. When they became virtuous, practicing honest, modesty and contentment with their lot, it collapsed into stagnation and poverty.
He wrote that Individual self-interest, even when morally dubious, exhibiting luxury, pride and greed, contributes to economic growth, innovation, and employment. Virtue, by contrast, undermines wealth by reducing ambition and consumption. He suggested that consumerism and luxury spending, though morally suspect, could stimulate economic activity.
The book was condemned as immoral, even blasphemous. The Grand Jury of Middlesex declared it a public nuisance in 1723. Critics accused Mandeville of endorsing vice. He insisted he was describing, not prescribing. He said he was exposing the hypocrisy of pretending that virtue governs society, when in fact it is vice and self-interest that fuel progress.
There is a parallel with Machiavelli, in that he described what is rather than what ought to be, and was condemned as wicked for it. He was lucky that his name did not become a synonym for evil as Machiavelli’s did. Old Nick, the Scottish nickname for the Devil, derives from Niccolo, Machiavelli’s name.
Mandeville flipped moral assumptions on their head, arguing that the very vices society condemned were the hidden engine of prosperity. He challenged moral orthodoxy. At a time when the Christian and civic virtues of frugality, honesty and humility were seen as foundations of good society, Mandeville argued the opposite. His writing was an early critique of moral hypocrisy and a proto-capitalist insight into the paradoxical benefits of self-interest.
He undoubtedly influenced Enlightenment debates about morality, politics, and economics, and even prefigured the utilitarian idea of weighing social benefits over moral intentions.
Madsen Pirie