The Dutch doctor Bernard Mandeville –translator into English of La Fontaine's fables– published in 1714 the surprising Fable of the Bees, which is, probably, the most original and famous political allegory about a beehive. It has been called the wickedest and most intelligent of all. In my opinion, it is philosophically essential reading precisely because it forces us to think against the current.It began as a long poem titled The buzzing hive or the redemption of the scoundrels, published anonymously in London in 1705. It was so remarkably successful that the author launched a second edition in a book titled The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Public Benefits (1714). In 1729, the seventh edition appeared, augmented. Its thesis is bold: the origin of morality and happiness are immorality and vice. Therefore, the universalization of honesty would be the ruin of a prosperous society.Mandeville's beehive is the prosperous England of the early 18th century, envied and feared by European nations for its efficient industriousness. But on closer observation, Mandeville saw that individuals do not work motivated by the common good, but by selfishness. The common good is the result of the involuntary conjunction of individual selfish greed, vanity, luxury, envy, vice, and hypocrisy. In other words, collective prosperity is the sum of partial interests completely ignorant of the common good.The British swarm certainly lives in a cozy and spacious hive, in tranquility and abundance. Their laws and armies, their science and industry, are universally admired, and rightly so. "Never did bees know a wiser government." Their kings can do no wrong because "their power is wisely limited by laws." All that is best found in any other society is found among these bees in an excellent manner.Mandeville brings the critical focus closer to factual reality and discovers that the nation is split into two halves. The first earns a living by the sweat of their brow and their work seeks to produce everything that can satisfy the other half. But the voracity of this second half, which lives at the expense of the sweat of the naive, is insatiable. It is made up ofarrivistes, parasites, gamblers, swindlers, counterfeiters, tricksters, fortune-tellers... and sophisticated scoundrels, like the jurisconsults, who, "only intent on collecting substantial fees, do everything possible to prevent litigation from being settled by agreement." The doctors are not far behind, more attentive to their profit than to the health of their patients. There are even priests who preach restraint and moderation but are incontinent and avaricious.Inequalities can be cruel: there are war mutiles who are paid a pittance, while some cowards who never entered battle receive double pay.There is no social class that does not have a stain, but the whole enjoys "a happy prosperity" because, whatever the pretensions of the gluttons may be, it turns out that their vices contribute to public happiness, so that "even the most shameless" contribute to the common good, which is nothing other than the involuntary harmony of opposites. The temperance of some favors the excess of others; the generosity of those, the avarice of others; the luxury of the rich gives work to the poor; the self-love of each stimulates the growth of arts and commerce. In this apparently paradoxical way the hive has access to the comforts and sweetness of life.Unexpectedly, one day a tempest of puritanism arose and the bees insisted on replacing everything bad with good things. Hypocrisy, corruption, and deceit were persecuted, and they achieved such a clear social transparency that no one could hide their flaws. This was the cause of their downfall. When they managed to universalize honesty, the cheaters were left jobless; with the triumph of sobriety, those who lived by producing luxury were ruined. With the disappearance of the superfluous, the uselessness of doctors, lawyers, and judges was revealed. "No one sought novelty, no one aspired to anything. No one spent. The militia was abandoned and the hive was left defenseless".Mandeville concludes: “Vice is as necessary in a flourishing state as hunger is necessary to compel us to eat. It is impossible for virtue alone to make a nation famous and glorious”. The idea that morality can be caused by immorality fascinated Nietzsche.
