Private Vices Research Articles

Private Vice and Public Virtue

Private Vice and Public Virtue

Pope's to Bathurst and the Mandevillian State

idea of the entire Essay [To Bathurst] is borrowed from Mandeville, said W. J. Courthope, referring to Pope's apparent use of the paradox expressed in the sub-title of The Fable of the Bees- private vices, public benefits. Courthope regretted this influence, for Mandeville was a low-spirited materialist, while Pope himself was not deficient in generous instincts and noble ideas.1 Courthope's mistake-leaving aside the name-calling-was to assume that Pope agrees with Mandeville. On the contrary, To Bathurst indicates a fundamental opposition to Mandeville which has been overlooked only because Pope's friend and editor Warburton magnified the poet's pretensions to systematic philosophy. To Bathurst is not a moral essay (which was Warburton's title, not Pope's), but a Horatian epistle-a brilliant satiric poem and not a curio from the Age of Reason. It is worth more attention than it has received simply because the -type and range of social observation are unique in Pope's poetry: he has more of the novelist's interests in this poem than in any other. In his response to realities harsher than those of Grub Street and high society, one can see the rationale of the cataclysmic denunciations which climaxed his career as a satirist. The Fable of the Bees is important in understanding To Bathurst, not because of a direct influence on Pope, but because it used contemporary ethical assumptions and dispositions in such a way as to challenge every Augustan writer on man in society. Mandeville shocked his time by challenging rigoristic ethical concepts and the notion that the health of the state is

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits. By BERNARD MANDEVILLE. With a Commentary Critical, Historical, and Explanatory by F. B. KAYE. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. 1924. 2 vols. £2 2s. net. A. W. REED A. W. REED Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume I, Issue 3, July 1950, Pages 366–370, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/I.3.366 Published: 01 July 1950

Collective Bargaining and Economic Theory

The shift from individual to is often thought to be the most outstanding social phenomenon of the last decades in all countries where a relatively free market has survived. While the phrase collective bargaining originated and has been most sharply defined in the labor market, group-organized direction of business activities can be observed in many other fields. Agricultural cooperatives have established collectively bargained prices for the commodities marketed by their members. A great amount also of large-scale buying and selling among manufacturers or between them and organized retailers has many of the essential characteristics of bargaining. In the field of international economic relations the negotiation of bilateral or multilateral agreements has been the rule and free trade the exception. The process derives its significance from its setting in the larger problem of organized groups within society. Its analysis, therefore, presents special difficulties to economic theory which has developed the tools of demand and supply functions under the simplifying assumptions of perfect competition in a monistic market. Where individuals have pooled their interests in a few powerful groups the appearance of atomistic competition has given way to organized group action, and the traditional assumptions of a free exchange economy prove of little empirical usefulness. Classical and neoclassical economists believed that the struggle of many selfish interests would turn private vices into public benefits. But where the many have been replaced by a few powerful interest groups the market may become the scene of an irrepressible conflict, which economics is unable to deal with, even in theory,' and individual efforts to enhance market opportunities through group association appear to threaten the very existence of competitive norms.2 This paper will attempt to explore some of the theoretical issues raised by the growth of bargaining, with emphasis placed on the broader implications of for the general drift of economic speculation rather than the formal aspects of bilateral monopoly.3

XLVIII. Bernard Mandeville on Gin

Dr. Bernard Mandeville in reissuing in 1714 the doggerel verses which he had first published in 1705 under the title, The Grumbling Hive: Or, Knaves Turn'd Honest, added extensive prose remarks and a provocative title, The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits, but he failed to stir a ripple of protest in English complacency, or even to attract attention by his bold thinking. In 1723, publishing his materials once more with extensive additions, by which he had industriously doubled the bulk of his book, Mandeville at last received his reward in the storm of abuse which burst about his head. He was recognized as the disturber of every acceptable idea which good men then took for granted. The Fable of the Bees became notorious. It was read widely in English and translated into French and German. Throughout the century it was thought to merit discussion, and if possible, vigorous refutation by the men in Europe distinguished for either piety or intelligence. By many readers Mandeville was held to be a monster of impiety, a low rogue too vile to be counted human.

'Private Vices' and 'Public Benefits.'

'Private Vices' and 'Public Benefits.'

The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits

The Fable of the Bees: Or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits

REVIEWS AND NOTICES

REVIEWS AND NOTICES Get access The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits. By BERNARD MANDEVILLE. With a commentary critical, historical, and explanatory by F. B. KAYE. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1924. Two volumes, pp. cxlvi, 412; viii, 482. 42s. net. R. B. MCKERROW R. B. MCKERROW Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Library, Volume s4-VI, Issue 1, June 1925, Pages 109–111, https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s4-VI.1.109 Published: 01 June 1925