Fable of the Bees

If you think 18th century economic philosophy is by definition dry and boring, check out Bernard Mandeville's 1714 poem "e;The Fable of the Bees."e; It espouses the benefits of selfishness as a way of increasing economic prosperity -- a common enough idea today, but one that was so scandalous at the time of its publication that Mandeville was convicted by a grand jury and widely denounced ...