[source: Fable of the Bees, p. 

MANDEVILLE DESCRIBES THE “SUCCESSFUL” MODEL for THE EMPIRE

Vast numbers thronged the fruitful Hive;
Yet those vast Numbers made 'em thrive;
Millions endeavouring to supply
Each Other's Lust and Vanity. ...
Thus every Part was full of Vice,
Yet the whole Mass a Paradise
Flatter'd in Peace, and fear'd in Wars
They were th' Esteem of Foreigners. ...
Such were the Blessings of that State;
Their Crimes conspired to make 'em Great;
And Virtue, who from Politicks
Had learn'd a thousand Cunning Tricks,
Was, by their happy Influence,
Made Friends with Vice: And ever since
The Worst of all the Multitude
Did Something for the common Good.

I shall be asked what benefit the public receives from thieves and housebreakers. 
They are, I own, very pernicious to human society, and every government ought to 
take all imaginable care to root out and destroy them; yet if all people were 
strictly honest, and nobody would meddle with or pry into anything but his own, 
half the [black]smiths of the nation would want employment.


He adds that even the growth of their trade, producing for “both ornaments and 
defence,” would “never have been thought of, but to secure us against the 
attempts of pilferers and robbers.” Mandeville continues: “A highwayman having 
met with a considerable booty, gives a poor common harlot he fancies ten pounds 
to new-rig her from top to toe.” In this case, asks Mandeville, is there a 
tradesman “so conscientious that he will refuse to sell her a thread satin though 
he knew who she was? She must have shoes and stockings, gloves,” and so on. He 
says: "[A]ll must get something by her, and a hundred different tradesmen, dependent 
on those she laid her money out with, may touch part of it before a month is at an 
end. The generous gentleman, in the meantime, his money being near spent, ventured 
again on the road, but the second day having committed a robbery near Highgate, he 
was taken with one of his accomplices, and at the next sessions both were condemned 
and suffered the law. The money due on their conviction fell to three country 
fellows, on whom it was admirably well spent."


In his summary of The Fable of the Bees, Mandeville argues that to "have a frugal and 
honest society, the best policy is to preserve men in their native simplicity, strive 
not to increase their numbers; let them never be acquainted with strangers or 
superfluities, but remove and keep from them everything that might raise their desires 
or improve their understanding. Great wealth and great treasure will ever scorn to come 
among men, unless you'll admit their inseparable companions, avarice and luxury; where 
trade is considerable, fraud will intrude. To be at once well-bred and sincere is no 
less than a contradiction; and therefore, while man advances in knowledge and his 
manners are polished, we must expect to see, at the same time, his desires enlarged, 
his appetites refined, and his vices increased.


Fable of the Bees in 1723, adding a new essay attacking any efforts to educate the 
poor. In a nation without legalized slavery, Mandeville argued that "[T]he surest 
wealth consists in a multitude of Laborious Poor. ... To make the Society Happy and 
People Easy under the meanest Circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of 
them should be Ignorant as well as Poor. ... Going to School in comparison to Working 
is Idleness, and the longer Boys continue in this easy sort of Life, the more unfit 
they'll be when grown up for downright Labour, both as to Strength and Inclination. Men 
who are to remain and end their Days in a Laborious, tiresome and Painful Station of 
Life, the sooner they are put upon it at first, the more patiently they'll submit to it 
for ever after."