The Economic Functions of Vice — A Reader’s Guide

Nature’s Wasteful Economy

McElroy begins by establishing a natural law of surplus and destruction. He writes that “Life is sown broadcast only to be followed almost immediately by a destruction nearly as swift.” The female cod’s eggs, the oak’s acorns—most are lost to predators, rot, or competition. He even quips that the strongest oak smothers the rest “like an oaken Othello in a harem of quercine Desdemonas.” This vivid, literary flourish is characteristic of his style.

From this biological pattern, he draws a direct line to human society. The “struggle for existence” is a “murderous scramble” to dispose of surplus population. McElroy’s argument is that vice—gambling, debauchery, luxury—acts as a natural culling mechanism, removing those who cannot or will not practice the thrift and discipline required for societal progress.

Vice as a Political Safety Valve

McElroy offers a striking case study: the Netherlands. A dissolute prince, “Lemons,” was a potential tyrant, but his vices led him to Paris, where “a few years of riot and debauchery sapped away the dangerous life.” His father’s excesses left a weak successor, and Holland may “glide into a republic without the usual sanguinary convulsions.” Here, vice is not merely tolerated but credited with preventing revolution.

The author frames this as “the story of the Ages,” citing Hannibal’s army undone by “the soft delights of Capua.” Vice, in this view, is a tool of historical change—less bloody than war, but equally decisive. McElroy does not moralize; he observes a pattern where personal failings have large-scale political consequences.

The Hohenzollern Counterexample

In contrast to vice-ridden aristocracies, McElroy presents the Hohenzollerns of Prussia. They began with a “stretch of most unpromising sand and swamp” and built a great power through “unsparing hard work, severe economy, plain food and coarse clothing.” The king personally “caned lessons of industry and frugality into his people.”

McElroy notes that while other German princes imitated Louis XIV’s debauched courts, the Prussian king served unsold cabbages at the royal table to save for the army. The result: Prussia rose from a “despised sandbarren” to the head of the German Empire. The House of Savoy followed a similar path. For McElroy, virtue—not vice—builds nations, but vice clears the way by eliminating the unfit.

A Provocative Moral Calculus

Throughout the essay, McElroy maintains a detached, almost clinical tone. He treats vice as a natural phenomenon with measurable effects, not as a sin. His examples range from fish to kings, and his logic is consistent: what seems wasteful or destructive may serve an unseen economic purpose.

Readers should note that McElroy’s argument relies on a selective reading of history. He does not address the suffering caused by vice, nor does he consider alternative explanations for the rise of Prussia or the fall of the Netherlands. The essay is a product of its time (1906), reflecting Social Darwinist ideas. McElroy’s voice is confident, even sardonic, but the evidence he presents is anecdotal rather than systematic.

The Economic Functions of Vice is a short, sharp essay that rewards careful reading. McElroy’s central claim—that vice can have beneficial economic effects—is deliberately provocative. He supports it with historical anecdotes and biological analogies, but the argument is more rhetorical than empirical. Readers should approach it as a period piece of social thought, noting how the author uses natural law to justify moral conclusions. The essay’s brevity (about 35 minutes’ reading) makes it easy to digest, but its implications are worth pondering long after the last page.

Years among the stacks taught me that The Economic Functions of Vice wrestles with a stark, Darwinian mercy. How curious, then, to find its quiet opposite in the Outlines of Mormon Philosophy Or the Answers Given by the Gospel, as Revealed Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, to the Questions of Life — Text and Context. Where one sees vice as pruning, the other sees every soul as eternally viable. Two dusty neighbors, arguing gently about grace across a century of shelf-silence.