Why vice does not make virtue, and why care matters more than ever
Estimated Length: 10 minutes
Thematic Arc:
This opening episode deconstructs the cultural logic that underpins modern capitalism, specifically, the idea that greed is good. Through the rediscovery and rewriting of The Fable of the Bees by Bernard Mandeville, I guide listeners on a journey from inherited economic mythologies toward a more care-rooted moral imagination. The bees act not only as ecological barometers, but as moral witnesses, reminding us what it means to live in kinship, not extraction.
Key Themes:
The legacy of Mandeville’s fable and its influence on Adam Smith and neoliberal economics
The cultural seduction of vice-as-virtue; greed, ambition, dishonesty repackaged as drivers of progress
Ecological consequence: the fallout of greed in the natural world, especially for the bees
A rewritten fable from the perspective of the bees, inviting an ethic of care, enoughness, and reweaving
The contrast between prosperity built on vice and flourishing rooted in interdependence
