The idea of the human machine – a natural order of things that could function as smoothly as a beehive if only we could cut away the bad habits we’ve got into over the course of our existence on this earth – has long attracted many thinkers on both the Left and the Right. Whether your taste runs to military efficiency, with no space left for the whining neediness of individuals, or flat, egalitarian structures in which everyone gets what they need rather than what they want, then there’s a beehive metaphor for you.
