The fable of the bees
Although never censored, Bernard Mandeville's anonymously published The Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices, Public Benefits came to be regarded soon after its publication in 1723 as the Enlightenment's epitome of immorality. As a naturalistic account of the mechanisms that condition human desire and of the unintended stabilizing social consequences of self-interested action, it has since been recognized as one the eighteenth century's most significant works of social theory. More sharply focused on Mandeville's social theory than any previous collection of his writings, this abridged and modernized edition includes the most pertinent sections of The Fable, a selection from Mandeville's An Enquiry into the Origin of Honor, and essential background reading from two of Mandeville's most important sources: Pierre Bayle and the Jansenist Pierre Nicole. E. J. Hundert's Introduction places Mandeville in a number of central eighteenth-century debates - particularly that of the nature and morality of commercial modernity - and underscores the degree to which Mandeville's reconception of egoism as a positive social force stood as a central problem, not only for his immediate English contemporaries, but for such philosophers as Hume, Rousseau, and Kant.
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- > 5. Self-Interest Actually Helps Everyone
See perhaps The Fable of the Bees as well, which was published a few years before Smith's birth:
> In The Grumbling Hive, Mandeville describes a bee community that thrives until the bees decide to live by honesty and virtue. As they abandon their desire for personal gain, the economy of their hive collapses, and they go on to live simple, "virtuous" lives in a hollow tree. Mandeville's implication—that private vices create social benefits—caused a scandal when public attention turned to the work, especially after its 1723 edition.
> Mandeville's social theory and the thesis of the book, according to E. J. Hundert, is that "contemporary society is an aggregation of self-interested individuals necessarily bound to one another neither by their shared civic commitments nor their moral rectitude, but, paradoxically, by the tenuous bonds of envy, competition and exploitation".[1] Mandeville implied that people were hypocrites for espousing rigorous ideas about virtue and vice while they failed to act according to those beliefs in their private lives. He observed that those preaching against vice had no qualms about benefiting from it in the form of their society's overall wealth, which Mandeville saw as the cumulative result of individual vices (such as luxury, gambling, and crime, which benefited lawyers and the justice system).
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees
In some ways this can be used to support trickle-down economics (TDE; popularized by Reagan et al in the 1980s, but around for over a century) to allow the rich to keep more money:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
One problem with TDE though is that you can only really spend so much, even if you go crazy in extravagance (only so many Ferraris and jets that one can purchase), and a lot of the money ends up being saved/invested/hoarded. It's probably better to give more money to 'poor(er)' people, who will probably end up spending more of it just to make ends meet—which is more likely to circulate in the economy.
- For a rebuttal to the critiques of excess found here, I recommend Mandeville's The Fable of the Bees (which Keynes references in the General Theory).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees
I do think it's worth contextualizing such debates about vice and virtue in the politics of the time. Court-favorites like the Duke of Marlborough (whom Mandeville defends here) using war to enrich themselves. Naturally this irked wealthy gentry who loathed the associated taxes and had rival commercial interests.
- Voltaire's Bastards by JR Saul is about all those things and many more. Absolutely amazing book, as are most of his others. Kind of a history of rationality since the 18th C, and how it went so wrong. Also a lot about technocrats, politics, etc etc. (About time I read it again!)
Oakeshott's Rationalism in Politics blew my mind. (He sees almost all modern political parties as dominated by this rationalism.) I was embarrassed how much I learnt from this long essay. Even a lot about piano teaching. Worth it for the ancient Chinese anecdote in the footnotes alone.
Richard Sennett The Fall of Public Man is a history of public spaces, living in cities, public politics, political charisma etc, since Paris in the 19th C.
Erving Goffman Presentation of Self in Everyday Life looks at (All these books are very hard to summarise!!) the stages, backstages, performances of life, actual stages, shops, hotels, ranks in organisations, these little worlds with rules and customs, how the rules are subverted, created, evolve.. full of fascinating stories.
EF Schumacher Small is Beautiful - definitely about government, money, society. Economics as if people mattered. When I first read this, I thought the survival of the planet depended on people reading it.
I found Mandeville's Fable of the Bees (1729) extremely funny and just as true. How everything depends on the sins of humanity. If we were all virtuous, economies would fall apart etc. Goes in detail into this argument and he's hard to argue with.
Susan Faludi's STIFFED. I learnt so much about modern work, life, society, and being a man from this. A must read.
p.s. and everything by JK Galbraith and C Wright Mills. Good luck!
- Some random things that come to mind: game theory, Nietzsche, Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Chomsky's political works, GK Chesterton (e.g. Heretics), Freakonomics, Cialdini's Influence, JR Saul (e.g. Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion), Bertrand Russell (e.g. Unpopular Essays, Sceptical Essays, Freedom and Organization 1814-1914), Santayana (e.g. Egotism in German Philosophy), Scott Noble[0] and Adam Curtis' documentaries. The Devil's Dictionary, Metaphors We Live By, The Moral Animal
If I had to pick just one for you - Voltaire's Bastards.
edit: Also La Rochefoucauld's Maxims should be very high on a list of exposés - it's a savage exposé of oneself. La Bruyere's Characters is a milder but still at-times-scathing exposé of the world. As is Fable of the Bees..
- Maybe i overread it but The Fable of the Bees is from Bernard Mandeville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees
My two takes for a good historic understanding of economics are this Books: Economics of Good and Evil, Tomáš Sedláček https://www.amazon.com/Economics-Good-Evil-Economic-Gilgames...
and Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus, Robert Kurz (could't find a English Version) https://www.amazon.com/Schwarzbuch-Kapitalismus-Ein-Abgesang...
- Adam Smith said a lot of things -- he was a philosopher of morals before he wrote about what we today call economics.
While he recommended the necessity of basic state institutions, I think would be a reach to say that he would justify the whole of the modern state, as some people nowadays try to imply. He'd probably be considered thoroughly minimalist by today's standards.
Smith's most important contribution was popularising the observation that greed can lead to positive outcomes, so long as it is hedged with some carefully chosen rules. It's inevitable, so there's no much point getting upset about it. Why not turn it to largely positive ends?
He wasn't first. Bernard de Mandeville was well ahead of him with The Fable of the Bees.
I found Hayek enlightening to read: http://chester.id.au/2012/12/07/review-the-essence-of-hayek-...
