ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

An economic identity is the characteristic of an individual within the context of society. By living a purely inward lifestyle, all labor is for self-support, and on the flip side, a purely outward lifestyle consciously supports growth of the community. On this topic, I can imagine a conversation between John Locke and Bernard Mandeville. They would probably agree that a slight inward sense of identity with personal incentive is necessary to fuel the system overall.

Examining the inward identity, it is necessary that individuals have personal goals in order to survive. Locke, in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, states that if man did not work the land to make it private and thus remove it from the commons, then “if such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him”. Private labors make survival possible and make use of that which was once worthless. Likewise Mandeville, in his The Grumbling Hive, introduces the reader to a thriving society in a beehive but at the cost of “Millions endeavouring to supply; Each other’s Lust and Vanity”. By each working for their own gain, the bees create a complete economy as they “Convert to their own Use the Labour; Of their good-natur’d heedless Neighbour”.

However, too much inward identity causes a corrupt and unhealthy economy. This begins with a “desire of having more than man needed” and thus “alter[s] the intrinsic value of things” (Locke). When people try to hoard and reallocate goods at an inflated cost, they throw the system off balance, away from the natural state God had put it in to provide equal opportunity for all. It is when the system becomes this way that the lower class is taken advantage of, “urg’d by meer Necessity; [They] Were ty’d up to the wretched Tree; For Crimes, which not deserv’d thar Fate; But to secure the Rich and Great” (Mandeville). By preserving the equality of all, Locke and Mandeville envision an orderly society formed by naturally organized cooperation.