I think probably it have been obvious to him that you have to have this luxury trade, because of your bringing in goods theyr from so far away. You can't ban this desire for luxury and also have the dutch east india company. So it's a kind of a conundrum that can't be solved by moralizing. It's a bit of an oddity. A so with manit, why does he sa it as a conundrum? Ell, it's a conundrum because everybody else is saying that it wouldbe better for a state to have virtuous citizens behaving in a virtuous way,. And that love of luxury destroys states like ancient rome.
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