Talk:The Fable of the Bees

Problems.
My attention was drawn here upon seeing a misconstruction of a source of which I have some familiarity. Further examination shows that everything about the topic – aside from the excerpts themselves – is from a single source, Keynes' General Theory. This wasn't immediately obvious as the citations are woefully inadequate. I am going correct various matters, including the citations, though I do not propose to correct every problem. If there is anyone with a particular interest in this topic: I suspect there are sufficient materials for good "critical review" (or some such) section. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:22, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. I have not removed the tag as more work is needed. In particular, the "Prose expansion" and "Economic views" need to be expanded. The former might more properly be about the book, particularly the second edition, which is barely mentioned. There is probably enough commentary for a whole section on "Modern criticism" (remembering that criticism does not mean negative commentary, but rather, careful or studied commentary). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Good heavens, though! The fixes point at libertarian sources, which is hardly a remedy to a purely Keynesian interpretation. Yes, Smith drew upon Bernard de Mandeville, but Mandeville remains enigmatic. Interpreting him in his own day is difficult. He appears to have been one of a number of what can best be called "radical whigs" -- including Charles Cotton, for example -- who proposed quite radical critiques of general Whig economic theory. They therefore were not comfortably "left" or "right" in their own day, and Mandeville sticks out just as radically when people attempt to fold him into Hutcheson and Smith. Hutcheson and Smith both worked from a theory of benign human nature, where Mandeville is a pessimist. (A Theory of Moral Sentiments makes this assumption pretty clear.) Mandeville is nearly, if we can stretch the word to its breaking point, Deist in his capacity to regard vicious human nature to aggregate and blunt its individual force, whereas both Hutcheson and Smith argued that people simply won't do evil things knowingly, because it is irrational. Hithladaeus (talk) 14:54, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Butcher
Mandeville influenced Smith in his statement at the beginning of Wealth of Nations where he wrote against his teacher Hutcheson "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Mandeville is criticizing the liberal Pelagian Christianity of his time from the Augustinian perspective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.28.145.174 (talk) 18:16, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Émilie du Châtelet's translation into French
The publication history does not mention the translation by Émilie du Châtelet, though the article on her mentions her translation being published (in 1835, according to this source). -Ben (talk) 15:10, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Hundert
Hundert's interpretation is undoubtedly incorrect and there is much more subtlety to the relationship among Mandeville, Smith and Rousseau than has been brought out here. Incidentally, Mandeville himself called the Fable doggerel. 108.28.172.70 (talk) 22:51, 8 October 2022 (UTC)


 * If we have a source for Mandeville's characterization, it should be added. Kdammers (talk) 01:32, 5 March 2023 (UTC)