The Contemporary Relevance of Thorstein Veblen's "Christian Morals and the Competitive System"1

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine some aspects of today's cultural and economic globalization in light of Thorstein Veblen's short essay, "Christian Morals and the Competitive System," published in 1910.2 In particular, I wish to introduce here the concept of the "spiritualization" of the leisure class. By this I mean the accomplishment of its long-term project of exemp tion from any life-furthering material process by means of the conservative utilization of the latest technologies. By "spirit" I mean the ghostly entity evoked by a spiritualist or medium rather than the Holy Spirit, that life giving third person of the Christian God, or the immortal aspect of the human being. The outcome of this spiritualization is likely to mark the end of what Veblen called the "universalized low-life culture" (p. 208) that followed upon western civilization's "aristocratic-feudalistic character" of the medieval era. Low-life culture and morality replaced the hierarchical and aristocratic culture that preceded it, and took some of the characteristics that were typical of original Christian duty. Veblen's essay begins with a statement and a question. The institutional norms underlying both "Christian morals" (identified with its elemental features of "non-resistance" or humility and "brotherly love" or mutual succor) and the "competitive system" (whose elemental features are "natu ral rights" and "fair play") seem to rule Western civilization and to consti tute its basic cultural habits of thought. Veblen asks: What would be the outcome if the morals of competition or those of Christianity "fell into abeyance"? According to Veblen, "Christian morals" and the "competitive sys tem" can be found in their purest manifestation only in the early phases of their development, since the medieval "barbarian" reintroduction of the distinction in terms of class and status quickly tends to reduce the domain 249