360 THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT bk. VI

ascetics that human desires were essentially evil and thereforeproduced “private vices” and assuming with the common viewthat wealth was a “public benefit”, he easily showed that allcivilisation implied the development of vicious propensities....

The text of the Fable of the Bees is an allegoricalpoem—“The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turnedhonest”, in which is set forth the appalling plight of aprosperous community in which all the citizens sud-denly take it into their heads to abandon luxuriousliving, and the State to cut down armaments, in theinterests of Saving:

No Honour now could be content,

To live and owe for what was spent,

Liv’ries in Broker’ s shops are hung;

They part with Coaches for a song;

Sell stately Horses by whole sets;

And Country-Houses to pay debts.

Vain cost is shunn’d as moral Fraud;

They have no Forces kept Abroad;

Laugh at th’ Esteem of ForeignersAnd empty Glory got by Wars;

They fight, but for their Country’s sake,

When Right or Liberty’s at Stake.

The haughty Chloe

Contracts th’ expensive Bill of Fare,

And wears her strong Suit a whole Year.

And what is the result?—

Now mind the glorious Hive, and seeHow Honesty and Trade agree;

The Shew is gone, it thins apace;

And looks with quite another Face,

For ’twas not only they that went,

By whom vast sums were yearly spent;

But Multitudes that lived on them,

Were daily forc’d to do the same.

In vain to other Trades they’d fly;

All were o’er-stocked accordingly.

The price of Land and Houses falls;

Mirac’lous Palaces whose Walls,