Historisk tidskrift 124:2 • 2004
Innehåll (Contents) 2004:2
Uppsatser (Articles)
Från yppighets nytta till dygdens försvar – den frihetstida
debatten om lyx
Leif Runefelt
Fulltext (pdf)
Summary
From the Usefulness of Luxury to the Defence of Virtue –
The Debate on Luxury in the Age of Liberty
This article deals with the question to what extent an economic,
non-ethical conception of luxury was accepted in Sweden during
the Age of Liberty. I question the conventional view among Swedish
historians, that a concept based on the philosophy of Bernard
Mandeville, according to which private vices were public benefits,
was widely accepted from 1740 and onwards.
Mandeville’s conception
of luxury as an important beneficial driving force in the economy
had far reaching consequences. If the vices of each and every
citizen created goods and wealth for the general public, what
need was there for virtue and morals? In a society where the
moral standards were raised high, this was not a question to
be ignored. I claim that although most authors, after the introduction
of Mandeville’s thoughts (in a speech given by Anders Johan von
Höpken in the Royal Academy of Sciences 1740), to some extent
acknowledged the usefulness of luxury – since the consumption
of the rich did provide the means of existence for many of the
poor – they were at the same time very anxious to defend the
role of virtue as the primary economic driving force, and just
as anxious to reject the thought of vice as something useful
to society.
According to most Swedish economic thinkers, it was
private virtues that created public benefits, and Mandeville’s
standpoint was therefore unacceptable. Luxury in general was
clearly a vice, but when it was performed by the very rich, it
became virtuous, because it was a civic duty for the rich to
distribute their wealth through consumption.
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