The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits. Bernard Mandeville

rouse them, though but in jest, from their idleness with praises, and pride will set them to work in earnest: teach them trades and handicrafts, and you will bring envy and emulation among them: to increase their numbers, set up a variety of manufactures, and leave no ground uncultivated; let property be inviolably secured, and privileges equal to all men; suffer nobody to act but what is lawful, and every body to think what he pleases; for a country where every body may be maintained that will be employed, and the other maxims are observed, must always be thronged, and can never want people, as long as there is any in the world. Would you have them bold and warlike, turn to military discipline, make good use of their fear, and flatter their vanity with art and assiduity: but would you, moreover, render them an opulent, knowing, and polite nation, teach them commerce with foreign countries, and, if possible, get into the sea, which to compass spare no labour nor industry, and let no difficulty deter you from it; then promote navigation, cherish the merchant, and encourage trade in every branch of it; this will bring riches, and where they are, arts and sciences will soon follow: and by the help of what I have named and good management, it is that politicians can make a people potent, renowned, and flourishing.

      But would you have a frugal and honest society, the best policy is to preserve men in their native simplicity, strive not to increase their numbers; let them never be acquainted with strangers or superfluities, but remove, and keep from them every thing that might raise their desires, or improve their understanding.

      Great wealth, and foreign treasure, will ever scorn to come among men, unless you will admit their inseparable companions, avarice and luxury: where trade is considerable, fraud will intrude. To be at once well-bred and sincere, is no less than a contradiction; and, therefore, while man advances in knowledge, and his manners are polished, we must expect to see, at the same time, his desires enlarged, his appetites refined, and his vices increased.

      The Dutch may ascribe their present grandeur to the virtue and frugality of their ancestors as they please; but what made that contemptible spot of ground so considerable among the principal powers of Europe, has been their political wisdom in postponing every thing to merchandise and navigation, the unlimited liberty of conscience that is enjoyed among them, and the unwearied application with which they have always made use of the most effectual means to encourage and increase trade in general.

      They never were noted for frugality before Philip II. of Spain began to rage over them with that unheard of tyranny. Their laws were trampled upon, their rights and large immunities taken from them, and their constitution torn to pieces. Several of their chief nobles were condemned and executed without legal form of process. Complaints and remonstrances were punished as severely as resistance, and those that escaped being massacred, were plundered by ravenous soldiers. As this was intolerable to a people that had always been used to the mildest of governments, and enjoyed greater privileges than any of the neighbouring nations, so they chose rather to die in arms than perish by cruel executioners. If we consider the strength Spain had then, and the low circumstances those distressed states were in, there never was heard of a more unequal strife; yet, such was their fortitude and resolution, that only seven of those provinces, uniting themselves together, maintained against the greatest and best disciplined nation in Europe, the most tedious and bloody war, that is to be met with in ancient or modern history.

      Rather than to become a victim to the Spanish fury, they were contented to live upon a third part of their revenues, and lay out far the greatest part of their income in defending themselves against their merciless enemies. These hardships and calamities of a war within their bowels, first put them upon that extraordinary frugality; and the continuance under the same difficulties for above fourscore years, could not but render it customary and habitual to them. But all their arts of saving, and penurious way of living, could never have enabled them to make head against so potent an enemy, if their industry in promoting their fishery and navigation in general, had not helped to supply the natural wants and disadvantages they laboured under.

      The country is so small and so populous, that there is not land enough (though hardly an inch of it is unimproved) to feed the tenth part of the inhabitants. Holland itself is full of large rivers, and lies lower than the sea, which would run over it every tide, and wash it away in one winter, if it was not kept out by vast banks and huge walls: the repairs of those, as well as their sluices, quays, mills, and other necessaries they are forced to make use of to keep themselves from being drowned, are a greater expence to them, one year with another, than could be raised by a general land tax of four shillings in the pound, if to be deducted from the neat produce of the landlord’s revenue.

      Is it a wonder, that people, under such circumstances, and loaden with greater taxes, besides, than any other nation, should be obliged to be saving? but why must they be a pattern to others, who, besides, that they are more happily situated, are much richer within themselves, and have, to the same number of people, above ten times the extent of ground? The Dutch and we often buy and sell at the same markets, and so far our views may be said to be the same: otherwise the interests and political reasons of the two nations, as to the private economy of either, are very different. It is their interest to be frugal, and spend little; because they must have every thing from abroad, except butter, cheese, and fish, and therefore of them, especially the latter, they consume three times the quantity, which the same number of people do here. It is our interest to eat plenty of beef and mutton to maintain the farmer, and further improve our land, of which we have enough to feed ourselves, and as many more, if it was better cultivated. The Dutch perhaps have more shipping, and more ready money than we, but then those are only to be considered as the tools they work with. So a carrier may have more horses than a man of ten times his worth, and a banker that has not above fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds in the world, may have generally more ready cash by him, than a gentleman of two thousand a-year. He that keeps three or four stage-coaches to get his bread, is to a gentleman that keeps a coach for his pleasure, what the Dutch are in comparison to us; having nothing of their own but fish, they are carriers and freighters to the rest of the world, while the basis of our trade chiefly depends upon our own product.

      Another instance, that what makes the bulk of the people saving, are heavy taxes, scarcity of land, and such things that occasion a dearth of provisions, may be given from what is observable among the Dutch themselves. In the province of Holland there is a vast trade, and an unconceivable treasure of money. The land is almost as rich as dung itself, and (as I have said once already) not an inch of it unimproved. In Gelderland, and Overyssel, there is hardly any trade, and very little money: the soil is very indifferent, and abundance of ground lies waste. Then, what is the reason that the same Dutch, in the two latter provinces, though poorer than the first, are yet less stingy and more hospitable? Nothing but that their taxes in most things are less extravagant, and in proportion to the number of people, they have a great deal more ground. What they save in Holland, they save out of their bellies; it is eatables, drinkables, and fuel, that their heaviest taxes are upon, but they wear better clothes, and have richer furniture, than you will find in the other provinces.

      Those that are frugal by principle, are so in every thing; but in Holland the people are only sparing in such things as are daily wanted, and soon consumed; in what is lasting they are quite otherwise: in pictures and marble they are profuse; in their buildings and gardens they are extravagant to folly. In other countries, you may meet with stately courts and palaces of great extent, that belong to princes, which nobody can expect in a commonwealth, where so much equality is observed as there is in this; but in all Europe you shall find no private buildings so sumptuously magnificent, as a great many of the merchants and other gentlemen’s houses are in Amsterdam, and some other great cities of that small province; and the generality of those that build there, lay out a greater proportion of their estates on houses they dwell in, than any people upon the earth.

      The nation I speak of was never in greater straits, nor their affairs in a more dismal posture since they were a republic, than in the year 1671, and the beginning of 1672. What we know of their economy and constitution with any certainty, has been chiefly owing to Sir William Temple, whose observations upon their manners and government, it is evident from several passages in his memoirs, were made about that time. The Dutch, indeed, were then very frugal; but since those days, and that their calamities have not been so pressing (though the common people, on whom the principal burden of all excises and impositions lies, are perhaps much as