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The Fable of the Bees

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The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits is a book by Bernard

Mandeville, consisting of the poem The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn’d Honest and

 prose discussion of it. The poem was published in 1705 and the book first appeared in1714.[1] The poem elucidates many key principles of economic thought, including

division of labor and the invisible hand, seventy years before Adam Smith (indeed, John

Maynard Keynes argues Smith was probably referencing Mandeville[2]). It also describesthe paradox of thrift centuries before Keynes, and may been seen as part of the school of 

underconsumption.

At the time, however, it was considered scandalous. Keynes reports in his General 

Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, that it was "convicted as a nuisance by thegrand jury of Middlesex in 1723, which stands out in the history of the moral sciences for 

its scandalous reputation. Only one man is recorded as having spoken a good word for it,

namely Dr. Johnson, who declared that it did not puzzle him, but 'opened his eyes intoreal life very much'."[3]

In the Dictionary of National Biography, Leslie Stephen describes it as follows:

Mandeville gave great offense by this book, in which a cynical system of morality

was made attractive by ingenious paradoxes. ... His doctrine that prosperity wasincreased by expenditure rather than by saving fell in with many current economic

fallacies not yet extinct. Assuming with the ascetics that human desires were

essentially evil and therefore produced “private vices” and assuming with the

common view that wealth was a “public benefit”, he easily showed that allcivilization implied the development of vicious propensities....

Keynes observes that this is a precursor to his theory of effective demand. He notes that

the book describes the paradox of thrift —showing that a community that forsakes luxury

for savings achieves neither.

The poem

The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits consisted of a poem, TheGrumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest , along with an extensive prose commentary.The poem had appeared in 1705 and was intended as a commentary on England as

Mandeville saw it

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A Spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,That lived in Luxury and Ease;

And yet as fam'd for Laws and Arms,

As yielding large and early Swarms;Was counted the great Nursery

Of Sciences and Industry.

 No Bees had better Government,More Fickleness, or less Content.

They were not Slaves to Tyranny,

 Nor ruled by wild Democracy;

But Kings, that could not wrong, becauseTheir Power was circumscrib'd by Laws.

The 'hive' is corrupt but prosperous, yet it grumbles about lack of virtue. A higher power 

decides to give them what they ask for:

But Jove, with Indignation moved,At last in Anger swore, he'd rid

The bawling Hive of Fraud, and did.

The very Moment it departs,And Honesty fills all their Hearts;

This results in a rapid loss of prosperity, though the newly-virtuous hive does not mind:

For many Thousand Bees were lost.

Hard'ned with Toils, and Exercise

They counted Ease it self a Vice;Which so improved their Temperance;

That, to avoid Extravagance,

They flew into a hollow Tree,Blest with Content and Honesty.

Prose expansions

The poem attracted little attention. The 1714 work soon became famous/notorious, being

understood as an attack on Christian virtues. What it actually means remainscontroversial down to the present day. He did say:

What Country soever in the Universe is to be understood by the Bee-Hive

represented here, it is evident from what is said of the Laws and Constitution of it,the Glory, Wealth, Power and Industry of its Inhabitants, that it must be a large,rich and warlike Nation, that is happily govern’d by a limited Monarchy. The

Satyr therefore to be met with in the following Lines upon the several Professions

and Callings, and almost every Degree and Station of People, was not made toinjure and point to a particular Persons, but only to shew the Vileness of the

Ingredients that all together compose the wholesome Mixture of a well-order’d

Society; in order to extol the wonderful Power of Political Wisdom, by the help of 

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which so beautiful a Machine is rais’d from the most contemptible Branches. For the main Design of the Fable, (as it is briefly explain’d in the Moral) is to shew

the Impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant Comforts of Life that are to be

met with in an industrious, wealthy and powerful Nation, and at the same time be bless’d with all the Virtue and Innocence that can be wish’d for in a Golden Age;

from thence to expose the Unreasonableness and Folly of those, that desirous of 

 being an opulent and flourishing People, and wonderfully greedy after all theBenefits they can receive as such, are yet always murmuring at and exclaiming

against those Vices and Inconveniences, that from the Beginning of the World to

this present Day, have been inseparable from all Kingdoms and States that ever 

were fam’d for Strength, Riches, and Politeness, at the same time.

Economic views

Mandeville is widely regarded as a serious economist and philosopher. He produced a

second volume of The Fable of the Bees in 1732, with an extensive set of dialogues that

set out his economic views. His ideas about the Division of labor draw on those of 

William Petty, and are similar to those of Adam Smith.[4]

Mandeville says:

When once Men come to be govern’d by written Laws, all the rest comes on a-

 pace. Now Property, and Safety of Life and Limb, may be secured: This naturallywill forward the Love of Peace, and make it spread. No number of Men, when

once they enjoy Quiet, and no Man needs to fear his Neighbour, will be long

without learning to divide and subdivide their Labour...

Man, as I have hinted before, naturally loves to imitate what he sees others do,which is the reason that savage People all do the same thing: This hinders them

from meliorating their Condition, though they are always wishing for it: But if 

one will wholly apply himself to the making of Bows and Arrows, whilst another 

 provides Food, a third builds Huts, a fourth makes Garments, and a fifth Utensils,they not only become useful to one another, but the Callings and Employments

themselves will in the same Number of Years receive much greater Improvements, than if all had been promiscuously follow’d by every one of the

Five...

The truth of what you say is in nothing so conspicuous, as it is in Watch-making,

which is come to a higher degree of Perfection, than it would have been arrived atyet, if the whole had always remain’d the Employment of one Person; and I am

 persuaded, that even the Plenty we have of Clocks and Watches, as well as the

Exactness and Beauty they may be made of, are chiefly owing to the Division thathas been made of that Art into many Branches. (The Fable of the Bees, Volume

two).