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Historisk tidskrift 124:2 • 2004

Innehåll (Contents) 2004:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

Från yppighets nytta till dygdens försvar – den frihetstida debatten om lyx

Leif Runefelt

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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.