ABSTRACT
In 1705, a Dutch-born philosopher named Bernard Mandeville published in England a satire called Fable of the Bees. Mandeville had stubbed his toe on a curious phenomenon. He saw that selfish personal behavior often led to good social results. "Private vices", he subtitled the book, "make public benefits". Mandeville merely stated the "private vices—public benefits" dilemma. Once men understood Adam Smith's principle, they could deliberately shape public and private policy to work with the grain of economic principle rather than across it. Before Smith, commercial progress had been uneven and, in a sense, accidental. Smith's latter-day critics decided that the invisible hand was the hoof of the devil. Smith identified the two forces at work in commercial action. The pursuit of profit drives the commercial sector. Competition directs it, disciplines its effort. The independent sector seems to drift, moving blindly and without discipline.
