Mandeville implied that people were hypocrites for espousing rigorous ideas about virtue and vice while they failed to act according to those beliefs in their private lives. Hundert, is that "contemporary society is an aggregation of self-interested individuals necessarily bound to one another neither by their shared civic commitments nor their moral rectitude, but, paradoxically, by the tenuous bonds of envy, competition and exploitation". Mandeville's social theory and the thesis of the book, according to E. Mandeville's implication-that private vices create social benefits-caused a scandal when public attention turned to the work, especially after its 1723 edition. As they abandon their desire for personal gain, the economy of their hive collapses, and they go on to live simple, "virtuous" lives in a hollow tree. In The Grumbling Hive, Mandeville describes a bee community that thrives until the bees decide to live by honesty and virtue. In 1723, a second edition was published with two new essays. It consists of the satirical poem The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn'd Honest, which was first published anonymously in 1705 a prose discussion of the poem, called "Remarks" and an essay, An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue. The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714) is a book by the Anglo-Dutch social philosopher Bernard Mandeville.
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