Talk:Bernard Mandeville

Benefit, but virtue?
Does the phrase "private vice is public virtue" actually occur in the Fable or is it a misquotation of "private vices are public benefits", which the article quotes? - Samsara 03:02, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

POV
The Encyclopedia Britannica article, from which this article was taken, advanced a point of view. Instead of describing Mandeville's ideas as vile, it should simply present them and let the reader decide on their truth.Lestrade 13:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Updated the format
I left the text alone, it seemed a fair summary. I also added him to 'philosophers' - the Britannica describes him as a philosopher, as does the Encarta.

More could be added to 'influences' and also 'influenced by', if there is a consensus on that.

--GwydionM 08:49, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Regarding his birthdate, I could find no support for January 19th or 21st, the latter being recorded as his date of death.

I have listed him as both a Dutch philosopher and an English philosopher: where he was born and where he worked.

--GwydionM 09:14, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I included the Costerman tax riots because it came from a reliable source, and sounds an interesting topic. Googling for it produced nothing useful.

--GwydionM 09:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I came across an article concerning the Costerman riots in Dutch. Added a reference to the article. But my addition was removed by the "owner" of this article. So be it. Some remarks. 1) these riots were no tax riots, but a power struggle between Rotterdam regents and William of Orange. 2) His father was heavily involved in this riots and Bernard Mandeville himself most likely wrote the pamphlet that led to the sacking of the house of the "chief of police" (for lack of a better term). Would be an interesting subject for some dissertation to prove this without doubt, using an computer aided analysis of all his texts, both in English and Dutch. JRB-Europe (talk) 09:57, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Possible Norman ancestry
The text states "Although the name Mandeville suggests a French origin, his ancestors had lived in the Netherlands since at least the 16th century." In the early 1600's, French Huguenots, including some Mandevilles, emigrated to Holland. The name comes from what is now called Mandeville-en-Bessin in Normandy. I think Bernard de Mandeville was supposed to have descended from them, but I don't have a reference. I did not change the text. Maybe someone can check this out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.125.1.2 (talk) 21:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I had a look at the internet at the Dutch sources. It seems very likely that his ancestor with the name Mandeville came to Friesland in 1568 with Walloon troops under command of Caspar de Robles, a very able soldier, bureaucrat and diplomat, who amazingly managed to solve a decades old conflict concerning the financing of dikes. JRB-Europe (talk) 09:44, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Fable of Bees quote
Marx cites Mandeville in the first volume of Capital (Fowkes translation, 1976, p.764-5).

“It would be easier, where property is well secured, to live without money than without poor; for who would do the work? ... As they [the poor] ought to be kept from starving, so they should receive nothing worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest class by uncommon industry, and pinching his belly, lifts himself above the condition he was brought up in, nobody ought to hinder him; nay, it is undeniably the wisest course for every person in the society, and for every private family to be frugal; but it is the interest of all rich nations, that the greatest part of the poor-should almost never be idle, and yet continually spend what they get.... Those that get their living by their daily labour ... have nothing to stir them up to be serviceable but their wants which it is prudence to relieve, but folly to cure. The only thing then that can render the labouring man industrious, is a moderate quantity of money, for as too little will, according as his temper is, either dispirit or make him desperate, so too much will make him insolent and lazy.... From what has been said, it is manifest, that, in a free nation, where slaves are not allowed of, the surest wealth consists in a multitude of laborious poor; for besides, that they are the never-failing nursery of fleets and armies, without them there could be no enjoyment, and no product of any country could be valuable. “To make the society” [which of course consists of non-workers] “happy and people easier under the meanest circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be ignorant as well as poor; knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our desires, and the fewer things a man wishes for, the more easily his necessities may be supplied.”

Bernard de Mandeville: “The Fable of the Bees,” 5th edition, London, 1728. Remarks, pp. 212, 213, 328.

“Temperate living and constant employment is the direct road, for the poor, to rational happiness” [by which he most probably means long working-days and little means of subsistence], “and to riches and strength for the state” (viz., for the landlords, capitalists, and their political dignitaries and agents). (“An Essay on Trade and Commerce,” London, 1770, p. 54.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 03:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

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