“Luxury
Employ'd a Million of the Poor,
And odious Pride a Million more;
Envy it self, and Vanity,
Were Ministers of Industry;
Their darling Folly, Fickleness,
In Diet, Furniture and Dress,
That strange ridic'lous Vice, was made
The very Wheel that turn'd the Trade.”

—  Bernard Mandeville, book The Fable of the Bees

"The Grumbling Hive", line 180, p. 10
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

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Bernard Mandeville photo
Bernard Mandeville35
Anglo-Dutch writer and physician 1670–1733

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