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It used to be that everyone read the "notorious" Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733). He was a great satirist and came to have a profound impact on economics, ethics, and social philosophy.
The Fable begins with a poem and continues with a number of essays and dialogues. It is all tied together by the startling and original idea that "private vices" (self-interest) lead to "public benefits" (the development and operation of society). From that simple beginning, Mandeville saw that orderly social structures (such as law, language, the market, and even the growth of knowledge) were a spontaneous growth developing out of individual human actions.

"Since I was first attack’d, it has long been a Matter of Wonder and Perplexity to me to find out, why and how Men should conceive, that I had wrote with an Intent to debauch the Nation, and promote all Manner of Vice: And it was a great while before I could derive the Charge from any thing, but wilful Mistake and premeditated Malice; but since I have seen, that Men could be serious in apprehending the Encrease of Rogues and Robberies, from the frequent Representations of the Beggar’s Opera,1 I am per-[v]suaded, that there really are such Wrongheads in the World, as will fancy Vices to be encouraged, when they see them expos’d. To the same Perverseness of Judgment it must have been owing, that some of my Adversaries were highly incens’d with me, for having own’d in the Vindication, that hitherto I had not been able to conquer my Vanity, as well as I could have wish’d.2 From their Censure it is manifest, that they must have imagin’d, that to complain of a Frailty, was the same as to brag of it. But if these angry Gentlemen had been less blinded with Passion, or seen with better Eyes, they would easily have perceiv’d, unless they were too well pleas’d with their Pride; that to have made the same Confession themselves, they wanted nothing but Sincerity."

Bernard Mandeville

Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) was a doctor and pamphleteer, whose works had a large impact on the course of eighteenth century social philosophy.

He received his degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leiden in 1691 and began to practice as a specialist in nerve and stomach disorders, his father’s specialty. Perhaps after a tour of Europe, he ended up in London, where he soon learned the language and decided to stay. He married in 1699, fathered at least two children, and brought out his first English publication in 1703 (a book of fables in the La Fontaine tradition). He wrote works on medicine (A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions, 1711), poetry (Wishes to a Godson, with Other Miscellany Poems, 1712), and religious and political affairs (Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness, 1720).

His most famous work, The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits,came out in more than half a dozen editions beginning in 1714 (the poem The Grumbing Hive upon which it was based appeared in 1705) and became one of the most enduringly controversial works of the eighteenth century for its claims about the moral foundations of modern commercial society.