His father loses his a position in rotterdam and is driven into exel thes a tax riot about engaged in drinking unlicensed wine. And so he's got no home to go back to. It looks as if he goes to rome. He ends up in london. How does he turn into london? Well, that's he turns into london and starts practising medicine in london without a license - which lots of people are doing but it's frowned upon. We know very little about him. Infact, that's what we're scrapin the barrel for. Is he successful? I hard to tell. Because of his worki soting mardous
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) and his critique of the economy as he found it in London, where private vices were condemned without acknowledging their public benefit. In his poem The Grumbling Hive (1705), he presented an allegory in which the economy collapsed once knavish bees turned honest. When republished with a commentary, The Fable of the Bees was seen as a scandalous attack on Christian values and Mandeville was recommended for prosecution for his tendency to corrupt all morals. He kept writing, and his ideas went on to influence David Hume and Adam Smith, as well as Keynes and Hayek.
With
David Wootton
Anniversary Professor of History at the University of York
Helen Paul
Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton
And
John Callanan
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at King’s College London
Producer: Simon Tillotson