Important works

At the beginning, Mandeville describes a lively bee community in which the bees achieve economic success and social prosperity through their personal vices such as greed, vanity and deceit. These traits drive economic activity and promote innovation and progress.

The turning point of the fable occurs when the bees decide to live virtuously and abandon their vices. However, this decision leads to a dramatic decline of the hive. The economy collapses as the previously active and enterprising bees now live in a stagnant society where there are no longer any incentives to be active or innovate.

Mandeville provocatively argues that private vices can ultimately create public benefits. His central message is that the pursuit of individual gain and pleasure is not only inevitable, but also necessary for social and economic progress. He challenges the notion that virtue alone is sufficient to create a prosperous society.

The fable criticizes the hypocrisy of society propagating virtue while relying on the benefits of vice. Mandeville shows that a strict moral way of life often leads to economic stagnation and that the pursuit of personal advantage paradoxically contributes to the general good.

Bernard Mandeville's Fable of the Bees was published in several stages: the work's origins lie in the anonymous publication of a poem in 1705. The first complete edition of the Fable of the Bees appeared in 1714 under the title "The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits". The first German translation appeared in 1761, while a French translation was published in 1740.

The famous Scottish economist Adam Smith was influenced by Mandeville's analyses. Smith's concept of the "invisible hand of the market" can be found decades earlier in Mandeville's work.