{"id":605,"date":"2019-02-06T15:41:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-06T20:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/?p=605"},"modified":"2019-02-21T12:02:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T17:02:18","slug":"mandeville-on-vice-lopt-and-bound-leadership-lessons-for-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/2019\/02\/06\/mandeville-on-vice-lopt-and-bound-leadership-lessons-for-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandeville on vice “lopt and bound”: Leadership lessons for the 21st century"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

As readers know, I am teaching a class this semester on competition, cooperation, and choice. We have already had fascinating discussions about the conflicting incentives people face in individual and group settings. Students raised good questions about whether reputation effects or repeated interactions make people more likely to cooperate. They also discussed the nature of the \u201cgood\u201d that might serve as an implicit or explicit metric to evaluate the outcome.<\/p>\n

We recently examined these themes in a favorite of mine, Bernard Mandeville\u2019s \u201cThe Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn\u2019d Honest<\/a>,\u201d an early 18th century poem famous among economists who work in the history of economic ideas. The poem is surprisingly modern, with a full-blown society characterized by extensive division of labor and voluntary market activity, all in the guise of a beehive.<\/p>\n

The first stanza reads:<\/p>\n

A Spacious Hive well stock\u2019d with Bees,
\nThat lived in Luxury and Ease;
\nAnd yet as fam\u2019d for Laws and Arms,
\nAs yielding large and early Swarms;
\nWas counted the great Nursery
\nOf Sciences and Industry.
\nNo Bees had better Government,
\nMore Fickleness, or less Content.
\nThey were not Slaves to Tyranny,
\nNor ruled by wild Democracy;
\nBut Kings, that could not wrong, because
\nTheir Power was circumscrib\u2019d by Laws.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, much more. The poem is tongue-in-cheek. It tells the story of how the bees, motivated by greed and selfishness, actually serve to ensure the hive is populous–\u201clarge and early Swarms;\u201d productive–\u201cthe great Nursery\/Of Sciences and Industry;\u201d and prodigious–\u201cThat lived in Luxury and Ease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Notice that Mandeville already makes a statement about leadership. The monarch\u2019s authority is not unbounded, but rather \u201ccircumscrib\u2019d by Laws.\u201d Indeed, justice and law figure prominently throughout the allegory.<\/p>\n

When the hive decides that selfishness should be undone and imposes this on its inhabitants, disaster follows. Without a need for legal counsel, the lawyers all retire. Since ostentatious ornamentation is no longer approved of, the demand for all sorts of goods falls off. No longer are clergy or the King\u2019s armed forces needed. And so on. The moral, as Mandeville puts it, follows:<\/p>\n

So Vice is beneficial found,
\nWhen it\u2019s by Justice lopt and bound;
\nNay, where the People would be great,
\nAs necessary to the State,
\nAs Hunger is to make \u2018em eat.
\nBare Vertue can\u2019t make Nations live
\nIn Splendour; they, that would revive
\nA Golden Age, must be as free,
\nFor Acorns, as for Honesty.<\/p>\n

Mandeville\u2019s leadership lesson is contained in the phrase \u201clopt and bound.\u201d He holds that a strong set of well-enforced laws must curtail tyranny. Then and only then will society thrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As readers know, I am teaching a class this semester on competition, cooperation, and choice. We have already had fascinating discussions about the conflicting incentives people face in individual and group settings. Students raised good questions about whether reputation effects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":592,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,807],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-government"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/leadershipspeculations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}