Bernard Mandeville’s “The Fable of the Bees” or a Hymn to Economic Freedom

Institutions (norms and rules) play an important role in the development of any socio-economic system, and largely determine its direction and speed. Economic freedom is one of the most important ‘products’ generated by the institutional environment. Strictly speaking, there is no unambiguous understanding of this phenomenon, but there is an almost universally accepted opinion that without freedom it’s difficult to achieve success in economic development and thereby ensure the growth of public welfare. The degree of freedom determines the extent and forms in which the interests of economic agents, related to the desire to obtain private benefits, which ultimately benefits the whole society, can manifest themselves. Bernard Mandeville, who can be considered the “petrel of economic freedom” almost the first among scientists and philosophers of Modern times, addressed this issue long before the founders of classical political economy and presented his judgments in allegorical form in “The Fable of the Bees”. Mandeville’s understanding of economic freedom as an opportunity for the manifestation of socially useful ‘private vices’ differs markedly from the interpretations of economic freedom that currently prevail and on the basis of which the relevant international indices are built. Nevertheless, Mandeville’s views, which were frank and devoid of any hypocrisy, served as the ideological foundation of modern views on economic freedom as an extremely useful, but very contradictory phenomenon in people’s lives.