Mandeville's paradox

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Mandeville's paradox is named after

The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits. He states that "Fraud, Luxury, and Pride must live; Whilst we the Benefits receive."^[1]

The philosopher and economist Adam Smith opposes this (although he defends a moderated version of this line of thought in his theory of the invisible hand), since Mandeville fails, in his opinion, to distinguish between vice and virtue.^[2]

References

^ Mandeville, Bernard (1714). The Fable of the Bees. ‘The Moral’.
^ Smith, Adam (1759). The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Part VII, Section II, Chapter 4 (‘Of licentious systems’).

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