The Thorstein Veblen Reader

by Thorstein Veblen

In spite of difficulties of sometimes archaic language caused in large part by Veblen's struggles with the terminology of unilinear evolution and of biological determination of social variation that still dominated social thought when he began to write, Veblen's work remains relevant, and not simply for the phrase "conspicuous consumption." His evolutionary approach to the study of economic systems is once again in vogue and his model of recurring conflict between the existing order and new ways can be of great value in understanding the new global economy.

CONTENTS:

The Barbarian Status of Women
The Beginning of Ownership
Bohm-Bawerk's Definition of Capital and the Source of Wages
The Engineers and The Price System
The Higher Learning In America
An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation
The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor
The Later Marxism
The Preconceptions of Economic Science
The Theory of Business Enterprise
The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Vested Interests and the Common Man
Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science

Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 2008

About the author

Thorstein (born 'Torsten') Bunde Veblen was a Norwegian-American economist and sociologist. He was famous as a witty critic of capitalism.

Veblen is famous for the idea of "conspicuous consumption". Conspicuous consumption, along with "conspicuous leisure", is performed to demonstrate wealth or mark social status. Veblen explains the concept in his best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Within the history of economic thought, Veblen is considered the leader of the institutional economics movement. Veblen's distinction between "institutions" and "technology" is still called the Veblenian dichotomy by contemporary economists.

As a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era, Veblen attacked production for profit. His emphasis on conspicuous consumption greatly influenced the socialist thinkers who sought a non-Marxist critique of capitalism.