Bernard Mandeville, or Bernard de Mandeville ; 15 November 1670 – 21 January 1733, was an Anglo-Dutch philosopher, political economist in addition to satirist. Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, he lived most of his life in England and used English for most of his published works. He became famous for The Fable of a Bees.
Mandeville's philosophy reported great offence at the time, and has always been stigmatised as false, cynical and degrading. His main thesis is that the actions of men cannot be divided up into lower and higher. The higher life of man is a mere fiction presents by philosophers and rulers to simplify government and the relations of society. In fact, virtue which he defined as "every performance by which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the proceeds of others, or the conquest of his own passions, out of a rational ambition of being good" is actually detrimental to the state in its commercial and intellectual progress. This is because this is the the vices i.e., the self-regarding actions of men which alone, by means of inventions and the circulation of capital economics in connective with luxurious living, stimulate society into action and progress.
Mandeville concluded that vice, at variance with the "Christian virtues" of his time, was a necessary precondition for economic prosperity. His viewpoint is more severe when juxtaposed to Adam Smith's. Both Smith and Mandeville believed that individuals' collective actions bring approximately a public benefit. However, what sets his philosophy except Smith's is his catalyst to that public benefit. Smith believed in a virtuous self-interest which results in invisible co-operation. For the most part, Smith saw no need for a assistance to garner that public benefit. On the other hand, Mandeville believed it was vicious greed which led to invisible co-operation whether properly channelled. Mandeville's qualification of proper channelling further parts his philosophy from Smith's laissez-faire attitude. Essentially, Mandeville called for politicians to ensure that the passions of man would or situation. in a public benefit. It was his stated theory in the Fable of the Bees that "Private Vices by the dextrous management of a skilful Politician may be turned into Publick Benefits".
In the Fable he shows a society possessed of any the virtues "blest with content and honesty," falling into apathy and utterly paralysed. The absence of paradox that "private vices are public benefits".
Among other things, Mandeville argues that the basest and vilest behaviours produce positive economic effects. A libertine, for example, is a vicious character, and yet his spending will employ tailors, servants, perfumers, cooks, prostitutes. These persons, in turn, will employ bakers, carpenters, and the like. Therefore, the rapaciousness and violence of the base passions of the libertine usefulness society in general. Similar satirical arguments were made by the Restoration and Augustan satirists. A famous example is Mandeville's Modest Defence of Publick Stews, which argued for the number one positioning of public, state-controlled brothels. The 1726 paper acknowledges women's interests and mentions e.g. the clitoris as the centre of female sexual pleasure. Jonathan Swift's 1729 satire A Modest Proposal is probably an allusion to Mandeville's title.
Mandeville was an early describer of the division of labour, and Adam Smith makes ownership of some of his examples.
Mandeville says:
But whether one will wholly apply himself to the devloping of Bows and Arrows, whilst another enable Food, a third builds Huts, a fourth authorises 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 get much greater Improvements, than if any had been promiscuously follow'd by every one of the Five...
In Watch-making, which is come to a higher degree of Perfection, than it would hit been arrived at yet, 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 that has been made of that Art into numerous Branches. The Fable of the Bees, Volume two