A Veblen Treasury: From Leisure Class to War, Peace and Capitalism: From Leisure Class to War, Peace and Capitalism

434 Pages·2015·19.192 MB·English

by  Rick Tilman

A
VEBLEN
TREASURY
From Leisure Class to
War, Peace, and Capitalism
STUDIES IN INSTITUTIONAL ECONOMICS
GARDINER C. MEANS
INSTITUTIONALIST AND POST KEYNESIAN
Warren J. Samuels and Steven G. Medema
THE HETERODOX ECONOMICS OF GARDINER C. MEANS
A COLLECTION
Frederic S. Lee and Warren J. Samuels. editors
UNDERGROUND ECONOMICS
A DECADE OF INSTITUTIONALIST DISSENT
William M. Dugger
THE STRATIFIED STATE
RADICAL INSTITUTIONALIST THEORIES OF
PARTICIPATION AND DUALITY
William M. Dugger and William T. Waller. Jr .• editors
A VEBLEN TREASURY
FROM LEISURE CLASS TO WAR,
PEACE, AND CAPITALISM
Rick Tilman. editor
A
VEBLEN
TREASURY
From Leisure Class to
War, Peace, and Capitalism
Rick Tilman
Editor
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Editor's Introduction ix
THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS
Preface 3
Introductory 5
Pecuniary Emulation 16
Conspicuous Leisure 23
Conspicuous Consumption 40
The Pecuniary Standard of Living 57
Pecuniary Canons of Taste 64
Dress as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture 90
IN CRITICISM OF ECONOMISTS
Industrial and Pecuniary Employments 103
Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science? 129
The Preconceptions of Economic Science 144
The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers 164
THE BASIS OF SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Races and Peoples 179
The Instinct of Workmanship 185
Ownership and the Industrial Arts 196
The Discipline of the Machine 203
On the Merits of Borrowing 212
On the Penalty of Taking the Lead 221
THE CASE OF THE UNITED STATES
The Captain of Industry 231
The Independent Fanner 242
The Country Town 250
CULTURE, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION
The Place of Science in Modem Civilization 267
The Intellectual Pre-Eminence of Jews in Modem Europe 285
Christian Morals and the Competitive System 293
Salesmanship and the Churches 304
The Higher Learning 309
The "Great Man" and His "Just" Rewards 328
ON WAR, PEACE, AND CAPITALISM
The Dynastic State: The Case of Gennany 335
Peace and the Price System 350
Review of J.M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences o/the Peace 388
Books and Articles by Thorstein Veblen 395
Suggestions for Further Reading 396
Index 397
About the Editor 403
Acknowledgments
The editor gratefully acknowledges the aid of Donna Evans, Diana Sjoberg,
Grace Skelly, and Ruth Porter-Tilman in preparing this manuscript for publica
tion. In addition, the editor thanks the Sabbatical Leave Committee and the
Research Committee (College of Business and Economics) of the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas. Thanks are also due to the following for permission to quote
from unpublished correspondence and manuscripts: University of Chicago Li
brary, Presidents' Papers 1889-1925; the State Historical Society of Wisconsin,
Thorstein Veblen Collection; the University of Missouri, Western Historical
Manuscript Collection, Jacob Warshaw Papers, 1910-1944; and the Minnesota
Historical Society. Andrew A. Veblen Papers.
vii
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Editor's Introduction
Veblen the Man
The neglect of the ideas of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) is a major academic
scandal. Veblen undoubtedly ranks with John Dewey and C.S. Peirce as the most
seminal mind of his generation of American thinkers, yet to many professional
social scientists and laypersons alike his name conjures up little more than vague
recollections of "conspicuous consumption," if that. One reason for this is that he
was a caustic critic of American business culture in a society in which business
has a hegemonic hold on the mind of much of the underlying population. Then
too, Veblen wrote in a manner that is difficult to decipher, for his prose is
studded with latinates that require a large vocabulary to comprehend. During his
thirty-year academic career he attacked every major institution and practice in
American life that had been or were regarded as sacrosanct; these included
emulatory consumption and waste, institutional religion, absentee ownership,
sports and games, the subjugation of women, and aspects of academic life,
including the entrepreneurial role of administrators. Little of this criticism en
deared him to the powers that be, in or out of the economics profession, and he
was thus often consigned to the underworld of economic heretics.
However, Veblen's reputation as a seminal thinker in economics and sociol
ogy is well established among institutional economists, intellectual historians,
and radical American sociologists, thanks in part to the massive study of him by
Joseph Dorfman. Dorfman gives an able analysis of his economics and sociol
ogy, even if he occasionally fails to offer a clear or consistent portrayal of him as
a human being. Veblen scholars owe Dorfman a serious debt, and the lacunae
left by him with regard to Veblen's personal traits and life can be filled in part by
using materials not available to him between 1926 and 1934, when he wrote
Thorstein Veblen and His America.1 Future biographers of Veblen may want to
revise Dorfman's conclusions regarding Veblen's late acquisition of English, the
cultural and social isolation of the Veblen family, and its material circumstances
ix