Vices and Virtues

If you were to ask anyone if, given the opportunity, they would erase all the vices of the world, the answer would probably tend to be yes. In fact, that person might look at you like you were crazy for even having to ask that question. However, would ridding the world of all vice ve beneficial to society? Would getting rid of every flaw and evil in the world fix everything? Well, according to Bernard Mandeville the answer is an emphatic no.
Mandeville, in his "The Fable of the Bees", sets up a society of bees who act like men. He describes the bees as being corrupt, and immoral, with lawyers who "kept of Hearings willfully,/ To finger the refreshing Fee" and physicians who "valued Fame and Wealth/ Above the drooping Patient's Health". Mandeville depicts a society in which vice rules, in which it is the worse rather than better nature of man that prevails. However, he later adds "Thus every Part was full of Vice,/ Yet the whole Mass a Paradise". According to Mandeville's fable, it is the faulty faculties of man which indeed fosters progress in society. To further illustrate this point, when the figure of Jove removes all vice from the world, society collapses. All bars close, lawyers are out of jobs--it's hardly the perfect society one would suspect.
According to Mandeville, we need vice to make society run. I would disagree. While there is some truth in what Mandeville says, he goes too far in saying vice is necessary for progress. Sure, the vice of vanity drives competition which in turn allows progress, but there are also those who help simply to help, who want progress not merely for their own gain, but for the benefit of others. To say "Bare Virtue can't make Nations live/ In Splendor" is too extreme. Do we have our flaws? Of course we do. But are we a vice driven society? Some people are, but I would like to have a little more faith in people. Mandeville posits that we are driven by our own ambitions, by our own selfish wants and needs. We are evil creatures and it is in being evil that we are able to take steps forward. I would argue that we are flawed. At times we only think of ourselves, but at times we think of anything but ourselves. It is that mix of selfishness and selflessness that makes us what we are, and what allows us to progress.