The Enlightenment's Fable

 The late Professor EJ Hundert wrote this authoritative book (The Enlightenment's Fable) on Bernard Mandeville's masterpiece, The Fable of the Bees. 

This is what Hundert wrote on Page 120: "At the heart of Mandeville' mature argument was the thesis that the growth of commerce, increased consumption and the expansion of a class of leisured commoners were all civilizing agents."

Mandeville does not think that people are basically good and that they are born selfish, but could be socialized if politicians, crafty and wise, knew how to appeal to their self-interest that working together and depending on each other was in the best interest of everyone, and indirectly promoting the public welfare.

Mandeville knew that the economy needed to grow (he was a mercantilist, not a capitalist), modernize, become more secular, more urban, and more prosperous if a people were to flourish. He felt that morality and commercial activity could not be mutually accommodated.

Note that he offered that increased wealth enjoyed by common people would improve society, even civilize its raw appetites and expressed passions.

I am more of a materialist than an immaterialist. As an egoist, I would agree with Mandeville that per capita prosperity morally elevates more than poverty and deprivation positively influence people. Until people enjoy affluence and prosperity, they suffer from low self-esteem, and that is evil incarnate. By raising the standard of living, we raise individual citizen self-esteem and that adds to virtue, so secular material well-being needs to suffuse modern society, and that is of benefit to all, and the Good Spirits approve of such widespread living conditions.