Thorstein Veblen and contemporary civilization

Abstract

Veblen's central point in The Theory of the Leisure Class is that the same compulsive pursuit of wealth and status through ownership, display, waste, and war that shaped the contours of past social orders also deter? mines the direction of industrial civilization. Relying on ethnographic por? traits and other histories for his description of primitive, ancient, feudal and modern leisure class institutions, Veblen repeatedly pointed out the connections between ownership, the subjection of woman, the denigration of productive labor and the affirmation of conspicuous consumption, waste and war. This extensive cross cultural journey through varieties of prein dustrial societies provided Veblen with a social psychological basis for his description and explanation of emerging industrialism. Veblen's leisure class social psychology and portrait of a 19th and early 20th century indus? trial capitalism that anticipated the contours of late 20th century civilization poses for students of the contemporary world the disturbing enigma that not much has changed. As it becomes more apparent that we now live in a Veblenesque world, the author of this intellectual prophecy is becoming increasingly relevant. This essay will apply Veblen's leisure class social psy? chology, which is illustrated in his portrait of business civilization in Amer? ica, to an analysis of some of the deepening irrationalities in the contemporary global political economy.