" manderville was saying things that vice is good, that these things he kept prostitution was necessary and essential for chastity. And this offended a great number of people," she says. "He maintains his satirical pose is that he also thinks virtue is wonderful." She asks: Are these and other emphatic ideas arousing people's roth?
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