Economists From England

"Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our Desires, and the fewer things a Man wishes for, the more easily his Necessities may be supply'd."

"People of Substance may Sin without being expos'd for their stolen Pleasure; but Servants and the Poorer sort of Women have seldom an Opportunity of concealing a Big Belly, or at least the Consequences of it."

"But in such perfect Animals as Sheep and Oxen, in whom the Heart, the Brain and Nerves differ so little from ours, and in whom the Separation of the Spirits from the Blood, the Organs of Sense, and consequently Feeling it self, are the same as they are in Human Creatures; I can't imagine how a Man not hardened in Blood and Massacre, is able to see a violent Death, and the Pangs of it, without Concern. In answer to this, most People will think it sufficient to say, that all Things being allow'd to be made for the Service of Man, there can be no Cruelty in putting Creatures to the use they were design'd for; but I have heard Men make this Reply, whilst their Nature within them has reproach'd them with the Falshood of the Assertion."

"The attempt to interpret economics psychologically begins, according to most writers on the subject, with the writings of Adam Smith. Psychology, as we know it today, hardly existed at that time; and yet Mandeville, a still earlier writer, interpreted economic facts in terms of human motives approximating those described by modern psychologists far more closely than those discussed by Adam Smith and his immediate followers."

"Then leave Complaints: Fools only strive To make a Great an Honest Hive. T'enjoy the World's Conveniences, Be fam'd in War, yet live in Ease, Without great Vices, is a vain Eutopia seated in the Brain."

"So Vice is beneficial found, When it's by Justice lopt and bound; Nay, where the People would be great, As necessary to the State, As Hunger is to make 'em eat. Bare Virtue can't make Nations live In Splendor; they, that would revive A Golden Age, must be as free, For Acorns, as for Honesty."

"The first Rudiments of Morality, broach'd by skilful Politicians, to render Men useful to each other as well as tractable, were chiefly contrived that the Ambitious might reap the more Benefit from, and govern vast Numbers of them with the greater Ease and Security."

"Thus Vice nurs'd Ingenuity, Which join'd with Time and Industry, Had carry'd Life's Conveniences, It's real Pleasures, Comforts, Ease, To such a Height, the very Poor Liv'd better than the Rich before."

"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, And lavish of their Wealth and Lives, The Balance of all other Hives."

"The worst of all the Multitude Did something for the Common Good."

"It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride."

"Luxury Employ'd a Million of the Poor, And odious Pride a Million more; Envy it self, and Vanity, Were Ministers of Industry; Their darling Folly, Fickleness, In Diet, Furniture and Dress, That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made The very Wheel that turn'd the Trade."

"They that examine into the Nature of Man, abstract from Art and Education, may observe, that what renders him a Sociable Animal, consists not in his desire of Company, Good-nature, Pity, Affability, and other Graces of a fair Outside; but that his vilest and most hateful Qualities are the most necessary Accomplishments to fit him for the largest, and, according to the World, the happiest and most flourishing Societies."

"If laying aside all worldly Greatness and Vain-Glory, I should be ask'd where I thought it was most probable that Men might enjoy true Happiness, I would prefer a small peaceable Society, in which Men, neither envy'd nor esteem'd by Neighbours, should be contented to live upon the Natural Product of the Spot they inhabit, to a vast Multitude abounding in Wealth and Power, that should always be conquering others by their Arms Abroad, and debauching themselves by Foreign Luxury at Home."

"Vast Numbers throng'd the fruitful Hive; Yet those vast Numbers made 'em thrive; Millions endeavouring to supply Each other's Lust and Vanity."

"The Multitude will hardly believe the excessive Force of Education, and in the difference of Modesty between Men and Women ascribe that to Nature, which is altogether owing to early Instruction: Miss is scarce Three years old, but she is spoke to every Day to hide her Leg, and rebuk'd in good Earnest if she shews it; while Little Master at the same Age is bid to take up his Coats, and piss like a Man."

"They put off hearings wilfully, To finger the refreshing fee."

"Because Impudence is a Vice, it does not follow that Modesty is a Virtue; it is built upon Shame, a Passion in our Nature, and may be either Good or Bad according to the Actions perform'd from that Motive."

"Mandeville was one of those who helped to give currency to the premise accepted by the primitivists: science, industry, the arts, luxury and trade are all born of pride. But from this premise he drew the opposite inference; since civilization, if not a good, is at least a necessary evil, "pride," which is its moving force, is a kind of useful folly."

"Though licentious and in many respects objectionable, there are a great number of valuable remarks and of just and profound observations in this work [The Fable of the Bees], especially with reference to the improvement of arts and the increase of wealth. Mandeville, indeed, by way of establishing his leading doctrine, that "private vices are public benefits," has represented sundry passions and desires as vicious which do not deserve any such character. Thus, the desire to rise in the world, to enjoy an increased command over necessaries and luxuries, and to attain to distinction, is said by him to be a vice: but it would be more correct to call it a cardinal virtue. So long as it is pursued by fair and proper means, and without injury or prejudice to the rights and interests of others, it is worthy of every commendation; and is, in fact, the prolific source of wealth, science, and civilization. Luxury and ostentation is also one of the vices on which Mandeville lays the greatest stress, as contributing to national opulence. But luxury is a most ambiguous term, and it is very difficult to say when it is or is not censurable... But however incorrect his classification of virtues and vices, and however lax his morality, his book contains a great many paragraphs that strikingly illustrate the progress of society, and may, therefore, be advantageously referred to by the political economist."

"It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direction. It is thus that he treats every thing as vanity which has any reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the sentiments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry, that he establishes his favourite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits. If the love of magnificence, a taste for the elegant arts and improvements of human life, for whatever is agreeable in dress, furniture, or equipage, for architecture, statuary, painting, and music, is to be regarded as luxury, sensuality and ostentation, even in those whose situation allows, without any inconveniency, the indulgence of those passions, it is certain that luxury, sensuality, and ostentation are public benefits: since, without the qualities upon which he thinks proper to bestow such opprobrious names, the arts of refinement could never find encouragement, and must languish for want of employment. Some popular ascetic doctrines which had been current before his time, and which placed virtue in the entire extirpation and annihilation of all our passions, were the real foundation of this licentious system. It was easy for Dr. Mandeville to prove, first, that this entire conquest never actually took place among men; and, secondly, that if it was to take place universally, it would be pernicious to society, by putting an end to all industry and commerce, and in a manner to the whole business of human life. By the first of these propositions he seemed to prove that there was no real virtue, and that what pretended to be such, was a mere cheat and imposition upon mankind; and by the second, that private vices were public benefits, since without them no society could prosper or flourish."

"He can hardly be called a "moralist;" and though it is impossible to deny him a considerable share of philosophical penetration, his anti-moral paradoxes have not even apparent coherence. He is convinced that virtue (where it is more than a mere pretence) is purely artificial; but he is not quite certain whether it is a useless trammel of appetites and passions that are advantageous to society, or a device creditable to the politicians who introduced it by playing upon the "pride and vanity" of the "silly creature man." The view, however, to which he gave eccentric expression, that moral regulation is something alien to the natural man and imposed on him from without, seems to have been very current in the polite society of his time, as we learn both from Berkeley's Alciphron and from Butler's more famous sermons."

"If there be no real distinction between virtue and vice—if the account given by Mandeville of the constitution of our nature be a just one—why do his reasonings render us dissatisfied with our own characters, or inspire us with a detestation and contempt for mankind? Why do we turn with pleasure from the dark and uncomfortable prospects which he presents to us, to the delightful and elevating views of human nature which are exhibited in those philosophical systems which he attempts to explode? It will be said, perhaps, that all this arises from pride or vanity. When we read Mandeville we are ashamed of the species to which we belong; while, on the contrary, our pride is gratified by those sublime but fallacious descriptions of disinterested virtue, with which the weakness or hypocrisy of some popular writers has flattered the moral enthusiasm of the multitude."

"Shaftesbury's book is full of fine declamation about the worth and excellence of men's reason and natural qualities, with an obvious intention to set these up against Revelation. It was against this system that Mandeville wrote his 'Fable of the Bees.' This book has anticipated the French writers in all their offensive representations of human nature, and it is remarkable that the severely religious parties have always had a sneaking kindness for Mandeville, at least, they hate the Shaftesbury school more, and for an obvious reason. If man's nature be as Shaftesbury represented it, religion is by no means necessary. Mandeville, on the contrary, shows man in his fallen state, and so points out the necessity of a Redeemer."

"The wickedest cleverest book in the English language."

"I looked over a celebrated book, "The Fable of the Bees." Till now I imagined there had never appeared in the world such a book as the works of Machiavel: but Dr. Mandeville goes far beyond it. The Italian only recommends a few vices, as useful to some particular men, and on some particular occasions: but the Englishman loves and cordially recommends vice of every kind; not only as useful now and then, but as absolutely necessary, at all times for all communities! Surely Voltaire would hardly have said so much! And even Mr. Sandiman could not have said more!"

"The natural depravity of mankind and remains of original sin were so fixed in Mr. Johnson's opinion, that he was indeed a most acute observer of their effects; and used to say sometimes; half in jest half in earnest, that they were the remains of his old tutor Mandeville's instructions. As a book however, he took care always loudly to condemn the Fable of the Bees, but not without adding, "that it was the work of a thinking man.""

"There is not a book in the English language which is less chargeable with the guilt of administering incentives to the appetites and tastes of the vulgar. Improper gratifications are never spoken of but in a way to make them odious, even when the paradox is maintained, that certain things called public benefits are promoted by them. The object rather is, to degrade the things denominated benefits, than to exalt the things which cause them; from the baseness of which, on the other hand, is inferred the baseness of the things which spring from them."

"It [The Fable of the Bees] is a satire upon artificial society; and like other satires partakes of the nature of a caricature. The end is to expose the mummery of the world, and the affectations of those who laid traps for praise by singing eulogiums on the dignity of human nature; to which end he shews, how much of fair appearance there is which is nothing but pretence; and how much of the fine things, and fine actions, on which we pride ourselves, are the result of qualities in us of which we are ashamed, and which we never cease to decry."

"Mandeville, the buffoon and sophister of the alehouse."

"The poem in itself was not much more than a clever jeu d'esprit, but the Remarks and the Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, which he published in defence of his thesis, are among the acutest psychological tracts of the age... The passions which produce the effect of virtue are those that spring from pride and the sense of power and the desire of luxury... Such a theory of the passions is a legitimate, if onesided, deduction from the naturalistic philosophy as it left the hands of Locke; the ethical conclusions, it will be observed, have a curious similarity with the later system of Nietzsche. The theory of Mandeville was too violently in opposition to the common sense of mankind to produce much direct influence, but it remained as a great scandal of letters."

"If Shakspeare had written a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees."

"More important...was the evidence that the "passion of labour...to make the world a better place for the people who inhabit it" was reciprocated by many outside the movement. They found their justification in R. H. Tawney's Acquisitive Society, published in 1920. This was a persuasive indictment, blandly self-confident and witty, of the system in which industry was not directed to the service of the community and in which the rights of property existed quite apart from any contemporary justification. The system was not merely unjust but morally wrong and socially absurd."

"Tawney the politician barred the way to Tawney the scholar. Time which he might given to studying history was devoted instead to the Fabian Society and the Labour Party, and he tended to see the world past and present in terms of socialist dogma. Hence his wholly untrue picture of early capitalism as cruel and greedy, destructive alike of social welfare and true spiritual values. No one would wish to deny that Tawney was a great man, but this greatness caused him to lead whole generations of history students into grievous error."

"Service, not profit, should be the motive force of economic activity, Tawney declared in The Acquisitive Society; and Tawney's doctrine was repeated, with varying degrees of eloquence and emphasis, from a thousand Labour platforms. This doctrine is, of course, inherently at variance with the basic assumptions of Keynesian economics, one of which is that the profit motive is the engine of economic progress."

"It was the quality of life, not the quantity of possessions, that was the justification for him of a socialist programme. He showed his dedication to this ideal not only in his writing but also in his life, and it seems to me that in raising the question of the quality of life, as a corollary of the overwhelming change in sheer quantity brought about by the Industrial Revolution, Mr Thompson is restoring as a genuine concern of economic historians the spirit of what I understand the Tawney tradition to be."

"With great regret I am coming to think increasingly that there is not a single work which Tawney wrote which can be trusted. I think that in all his work he was so dominated by his preconceptions, unconsciously (well, partly unconsciously), that everything he wrote was written to a propaganda purpose. And the result has been very drastic. People won't believe this, but when the historian comes to write – if an historian still comes to write – an intellectual history of the early twentieth century, Tawney will be one of the figures he will really have to concern himself with. Not Toynbee, whose influence is neither here nor there (not in this country at any rate). Not Maitland, who carried very little influence in the public mind, even indirectly. But Tawney, who wrote for a purpose – wrote beautifully, and wrote history which was in great parts – I am looking for a polite word – in great parts mistaken. And it was mistaken because he meant it to be so, though he didn't know this. He was proving a point."

"Tawney's Socialism...derived from a Christian inspiration. Tawney's Socialism, thanks no doubt to his memories of the First World War, comprised a full-blooded defence of the way Britain must be physically defended... Tawney's Socialism was also inextricably soldered with his democratic faith; the two together so that no one could ever put them asunder. Tawney's Socialism could not be traced solely to William Morris...but Morris's ideas and idealism were woven into the rich pattern of his political faith... His writings were read and loved – it is not too much to say – by one generation of Socialists after another."

"I read R.H. Tawney's book, The Attack, which is a series of pieces written over the course of his life... Reading it, I realised that the right wing of the Labour Party, that is to say the Croslands and the Hattersleys, have really stolen Tawney and made him their apostle, whereas when you actually read what he had written you find he was an intensely radical man. I have been asked to write a preface for the new issue, and I intend to try to get him reinstated as the spokesman for the mainstream, democratic, Christian socialist left... The more I read Tawney, the more I become convinced that his words would be helpful and comforting to us now and would assist in preventing the so-called Social Democrats from breaking away from the Labour Party."

"The certainties of one age are the problems of the next."

"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow."

"I always think of him as the Democratic Socialist par excellence."

"Tawney held out hopes of a better world to come, and he possessed a quality that impressed all who met him: purity of heart."

"A society which reverences the attainment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned in the next world, if only to justify itself for making their life a hell in this."

"It is probable that democracy owes more to Nonconformity than to any other single movement."

"The foundation of democracy is the sense of spiritual independence which nerves the individual to stand alone against the powers of this world."

"The shrewd, calculating commercialism which tries all human relations by pecuniary standards, the acquisitiveness which cannot rest while there are competitors to be conquered or profits to be won, the love of social power and hunger for economic gain—these irrepressible appetites had evoked from time immemorial the warnings and denunciations of saints and sages. Plunged in the cleansing waters of later Puritanism, the qualities which less enlightened ages had denounced as social vices emerged as economic virtues. They emerged as moral virtues as well. For the world exists not to be enjoyed, but to be conquered. Only its conqueror deserves the name of Christian. For such a philosophy, the question, "What shall it profit a man?" carries no sting. In winning the world, he wins the salvation of his own soul as well."

"Mankind may wring her secrets from nature, and use their knowledge to destroy themselves."

"The entrenched left cannot identify with Tawney in honesty for several reasons: The patriotic old wounded soldier from the Somme was always contemptuous of those of us who were in CND, and he strongly supported Gaitskell's "fight, fight and fight again" speech; Tawney never accepted that conference decisions should overrule the judgment of the Parliamentary Labour Party or individual conscience... He did not accept majorities based on what he considered the total non-democracy of the block vote... The right would hesitate to vote for Tawney's ghost because his commitment to Clause 4, to extensive public ownership, to his philosophical attack on the sanctity of private property... The ghost of Tawney, the whole Tawney, would shake them all."

"Virtues are often conquered by vices, but their rout is most complete when it is inflicted by other virtues, more militant, more efficient, or more congenial."