Recommended
Readings:
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Writings by Veblen:
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?
Theory of Business Enterprise
The Engineers and the Price System
The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and his Followers (Part
1)
The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and his Followers (Part
2)
The Barbarian Status of Women
The Higher Learning in America
The Vested Interest and the Common Man
The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor
The Beginning of Ownership
The Preconceptions of Economic Science
The Preconceptions of Economic Science pt. 2
The Preconceptions of Economic Science pt. 3
Links About Veblen:
A Brief Biography
Another Biography
Great Economists by Mark Blaug
Correcting the History by Jonathan Larson
The Veblenite
Collected Essays
Major Works
A
Veblen Index
In His Own Words:
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make
two questions grow where only one grew before.
Invention is the mother of necessity.
The superior gratification derived from the use and
contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great
measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name
of beauty.
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis
to a judicious use of sabotage.
No one traveling on a business trip would be missed if he
failed to arrive.
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make
two questions grow where only one grew before.
On Human Nature:
“The psychological and
anthropological preconceptions of the economists have been those which were
accepted by the psychological and social sciences some generations ago. The
hedonistic conception of man is that of a lightning calculator of pleasures and
pains who oscillates like a homogeneous globule of desire of happiness under the
impulse of stimuli that shift him about the area, but leave him intact.”
“Spiritually, the hedonistic man
is not a prime mover. He is not the seat of a process of living, except in the
sense that he is subject to a series of permutations enforced upon him by
circumstances external and alien to him.”
"The later psychology,
re-enforced by modern anthropological research, gives a different conception of
human nature. According to this conception, it is the characteristic of man to
do something, not simply to suffer pleasures and pains through the impact of
suitable forces.”
“He is not simply a bundle of
desires that are to be saturated by being placed in the path of the forces of
the environment, but rather a coherent structure of propensities and habits
which seeks realization and expression in an unfolding activity.”
“Sensitiveness to rebuke or
approval is a matter of selective necessity under the circumstances of
associated life. Without it no group of men could carry on a collective life in
a material environment that requires shaping to the ends of man. In this
respect, again, man shows a spiritual relationship with the gregarious animals
rather than with the solitary beasts of prey.”
On
Evolution:
“The process of cumulative
change that is to be accounted for is the sequence of change in the methods of
doing things—the methods of dealing with the material means of life.”
“The life of man in society,
just like the life of other species, is a struggle for existence, and therefore
it is a process of selective adaptation. The evolution of social structure has
been a process of natural selection of institution.”
“The progress which has been and
is being made in human institutions and in human character may be set down,
broadly, to a natural selection of the fittest habits of thought and to a
process of enforced adaptation of individuals to an environment which has
progressively changed with the growth of the community and with the changing
institutions under which men have lived.”
“Institutions are not only
themselves the result of a selective and adaptive process which shapes the
prevailing or dominant types of spiritual attitude and aptitudes; they are at
the same time special methods of life and of human relations, and are therefore
in their turn efficient factors of selection.”
“So that the changing
institutions in their turn make for a further selection of individuals endowed
with the fittest temperament, and a further adaptation of individual temperament
and habits to the changing environment through the formation of new
institutions.”
“A study of …primitive
cultures…shows a close correlation between the material (industrial and
pecuniary) life of any given people and their civic, domestic, and religious
scheme of life; the myths and the religious cult reflect the character of these
other—especially the economic and domestic—institutions in a peculiarly naïve
and truthful manner.”
“The leisure class lives by the
industrial community rather than in it. Its relations to industry are of a
pecuniary rather than an industrial kind. Admission to the class is gained by
exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes—aptitudes for acquisition rather than for
serviceability.”
“There is, therefore, a
continued selective sifting of the human material that makes up the leisure
class, and this selection proceeds on the ground of fitness for pecuniary
pursuits.”
On the Leisure Class:
“The quasi-peaceable
gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the
minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption
also undergoes a specialization as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He
consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services,
ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or
divinities.”
“Since the consumption of these
more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it becomes honorific; and
conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of
inferiority and demerit.”
“This growth of punctilious
discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc., presently
affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual
activity of the gentleman of leisure. He is no longer simply the successful,
aggressive male,--the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. In order to
avoid stultification he must also cultivate his tastes, for it now becomes
incumbent on him to discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the
ignoble in consumable goods.”
“Closely related to the
requirement that the gentleman must consume freely and of the right kind of
goods, there is the requirement that he must know how to consume them in a
seemly manner. His life of leisure must be conducted in due form. Hence arise
good manners in the way pointed out in an earlier chapter. High-bred manners and
ways of living are items of conformity to the norm of conspicuous leisure and
conspicuous consumption.”
“As
wealth accumulates, the leisure class develops further in function and
structure, and there arises a differentiation within the class. There is a more
or less elaborate system of rank and grades. This differentiation is furthered
by the inheritance of wealth and the consequent inheritance of gentility. With
the inheritance of gentility goes the inheritance of obligatory leisure; and
gentility of a sufficient potency to entail a life of leisure may be inherited
without the complement of wealth required to maintain a dignified leisure.”
“The leisure class stands at the
head of the social structure in point of reputability; and its manner of life
and its standards of worth therefore afford the norm of reputability for the
community. The observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation,
becomes incumbent upon all classes lower in the scale.”
On Conspicuous
Consumption:
"Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of
reputability to the gentleman of leisure."
“The basis on which good repute
in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary
strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or
retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.”
“In modern civilized
communities the lines of demarcation between social classes have grown vague and
transient, and wherever this happens the norm of reputability imposed by the
upper class extends its coercive influence with but slight hindrance down
through the social structure to the lowest strata.”
“The result is that the
members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in
vogue in the next higher stratum, and bend their energies to live up to that
ideal. On pain of forfeiting their good name and their self-respect in case of
failure, they must conform to the accepted code, at least in
appearance.”
“From the foregoing survey
of the growth of conspicuous leisure and consumption, it appears that the
utility of both alike for the purposes of reputability lies in the element of
waste that is common to both. In the one case it is a waste of time and effort,
in the other it is a waste of goods. Both are methods of demonstrating the
possession of wealth, and the two are conventionally accepted as equivalents.”
“The exigencies of the modern
industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition
between whom there is little contact in any other sense than that of
juxtaposition. One's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are socially not
one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion
has a high degree of utility.”
“The only practicable means
of impressing one's pecuniary ability on these unsympathetic observers of one's
everyday life is an unremitting demonstration of ability to pay. In the modern
community there is also a more frequent attendance at large gatherings of people
to whom one's everyday life is unknown; in such places as churches, theatres,
ballrooms, hotels, parks, shops, and the like.”
“In order to impress these
transient observers, and to retain one's self-complacency under their
observation, the signature of one's pecuniary strength should be written in
characters which he who runs may read.”
“It is evident, therefore, that
the present trend of the development is in the direction of heightening the
utility of conspicuous consumption as compared with leisure.”
On Absolute & Relative
Poverty:
“The modern industrial system is
based on the institution of private property under free competition, and it
cannot be claimed that these institutions have heretofore worked to the
detriment of the material interests of the average member of society. The ground
of discontent cannot lie in a disadvantageous comparison of the present with the
past, so far as material interests are concerned.”
“It is notorious, and,
practically, none of the agitators deny, that the system of industrial
competition, based on private property, has brought about, or has at least
co-existed with, the most rapid advance in average wealth and industrial
efficiency that the world has seen.”
“Especially can it fairly be
claimed that the result of the last few decades of our industrial development
has been to increase greatly the creature comforts within the reach of the
average human being. And, decidedly, the result has been an amelioration of the
lot of the less favored in a relatively greater degree than that of those
economically more fortunate.”
“The claim that the system of
competition has proved itself an engine for making the rich richer and the poor
poorer has the fascination of epigram; but if its meaning is that the lot of the
average, of the masses of humanity in civilized life, is worse to-day, as
measured in the means of livelihood, than it was twenty, or fifty, or a hundred
years ago, then it is farcical. The cause of discontent must be sought elsewhere
than in any increased difficulty in obtaining the means of subsistence or of
comfort.”
“But there is a sense in which
the aphorism is true, and in it lies at least a partial explanation of the
unrest which our conservative people so greatly deprecate. The existing system
has not made, and does not tend to make, the industrious poor poorer as measured
absolutely in means of livelihood; but it does tend to make them relatively
poorer, in their own eyes, as measured in terms of comparative economic
importance, and, curious as it may seem at first sight, that is what seems to
count.”
“Human nature being what it is,
the struggle of each to possess more than his neighbor is inseparable from the
institution of private property. And also, human nature being what it is, one
who possesses less will, on the average, be jealous of the one who possesses
more; and "more" means not more than the average share, but more than the share
of the person who makes the comparison.”
References:
nLewis A. Coser,
Masters of Sociological
Thought. New York: Harcout, Brace, Jovanovich Publishers, 1977.
