THORSTEIN VEBLEN
Michael Sexton
Christy Suesakul
BACKGROUND
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Thorstein Bunde Veblen was born July 30, 1857 on a Wisconsin Farm. He was the sixth of
twelve children born to Norwegian immigrants.
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When he was seventeen he entered the academy of Carleton, a Christian evangelical
school which was very strict towards free-thinking and –acting behavior. Veblen was not
well suited for this college but still graduated in 1880.
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He received a Ph.D from a Ivy League school and strong letters of recommendation from
that school but still was subject to discrimination because of his agnostic views and
Norwegian background (immigrant status).
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He decided to continue his studies at Cornell as a graduate student in social sciences in
1891. Here he published a paper, “Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism”
along with a number of technical papers for The Quarterly Journal of Economics.
•
This lead to him becoming an instructor at the University of Chicago.
BACKGROUND
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Veblen's teaching methods at the University of Chicago were different and he was known
deliberately discourage students from taking his class. He would mumble through his
lectures but his students would always admire his wit.
•
He also very susceptical to women who were very attracted to him and there were many
rumors about his affairs. When he realized the college frowned at this behavior he said
“what am I to do, if I am pursued, and I am not the pursuer”.
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He became the editor of the Journal of Political Economy. In 1898 he published his first
critique of economic theory, “Why is Economics Not and Evolutionary Science?”
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He then published two books, the first and most widely read , The Theory of Leisure
Class. The other The Theory of Business Enterprise which was not as well received as
Leisure.
BACKGROUND
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His womanizing finally caught up to him and caused both his job at the University of
Chicago and his wife finally leaving him.
•
A former student and good friend to Veblen helped him out and was able to get him a
position at University of Missouri. Here he remarried and was able to publish 8 more
books throughout his years there.
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In 1926 he returned to Palo Alto, California and lived in a shack town. On August 3, 1929
Thorstein Veblen died, “just before the Depression which many felt his work anticipated.
INFLUENCES
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Karl Marx
• Did not consider himself a Marxist and actually disagreed with him on multiple
statements. He still was very influential on him and his works.
• Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin
• He strongly believed in Spencer's survival of the fittest principle and applied it to his
analysis of industry. Veblen also spoke of economics as pre-Darwinian and postDarwinian science.
•
Immanuel Kant
• Veblen’s treatise The Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation was
consciously modeled after Kant’s Perpetual Peace.
INFLUENCES
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Pragmatism and Psychology
• American Pragmatism was the prevailing intellectual thought during Veblen’s primary
academic years. Veblen also valued Psychology because it provided an alternative
view of economics
•
Edward Bellamy
• Enjoyed Bellamy’s novel Looking Backward. Veblen was pleased with this brand of
utopian thought because it did not advocate the reactionary behavior of going back
to agrarian society.
THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS
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Definition of Leisure Class
•
•
Those persons who engaged in non-productive economic behaviors; similar to
the business class
The members of the leisure class participated in the following
• Conspicuous Consumption
• Purchasing of items not necessary for basic survival
• Conspicuous Leisure
• Non-productive use of time
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
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“It is a theory of a process, of an unfolding sequence.”-Veblen
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Influenced here by Spencer and Darwinist ideas
• “Fittest” survive while the “unfit” risk dissolution
• Therefore, societies need to change with the times in order to survive
•
Change in society is directly related to the state of “Industrial arts,” or the level of
technology available to a society
•
Effects of technology on society is not always immediate
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
•
Social change can polarize a society
• Those that are involved with the new technologies VS. Those that are invested in old
ways
•
Periods of transition between old and new emerging social order, social conflicts are likely
to surface
•
Ready-Made Technologies (Cultural Borrowing)
• Cultures borrow the technological arts from other societies, and skip the trial and
tribulations of developing such technologies.
EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
CULTURAL LAG AND CULTURAL BORROWING
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Cultural Lag-William Fielding Ogburn
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Lag that occurs when one part of culture changes, before or in greater degree than, other
correlated parts do; thereby causing a gap between the parts that had never existed
previously.
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Most often applied to the adaptation of new technologies to existing social institutions
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Captains of industry that introduce the new technologies can also be guilty of a cultural
lag, if they purposely limit production in order to maximize production
Cultural Borrowing
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The borrowing of technology, after the original creators of the technology have learned to
fully maximize its usage
•
Involves all the benefits of the technology but not the original costs
•
Limitations
• Borrowing society may not be suited for the utilization of the new technologies
• New technology may be so large that it consumes the borrowing society
HUMAN NATURE: CLASS, GENDER, AND RACE
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Humans engage in “tropismatic action”—behaviors that involves no conscious thought
process
• Habitual and ultimately institutionalized behaviors
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Technological advancements and social change shape and alter culture
•
Class, gender, and race are subject to changes
• This is encouraging for those that face economic disadvantages, oppression, racism
and sexism
HUMAN NATURE: CLASS, GENDER, AND RACE
CLASS
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Humans possess an instinct of workmanship-a need to work, create to do something
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The need for status would serve to stimulate the desire to create a surplus
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Accumulation of items is a goal, in order to bring status to oneself
•
Wealthy-Class
• Involved themselves in conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure
•
Lower-Class
• Involved in manual labor
• Wealthy-class began to see manual labor as work that was beneath them
HUMAN NATURE: CLASS, GENDER, AND RACE
GENDER
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Beginning of human history men and women were equal, but as time passed poor women
began to feel the burden of hard tasks more often
• Pregnancy and nursing demobilized women, while the tribe could survive while the
males were gone for long periods of time
•
War, hunting, government, religion and sports were treated with a mark of respect-men’s
jobs
•
Routine work was seen as unworthy to men
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Men would show off their possessions like trophies-including their women
HUMAN NATURE: CLASS, GENDER, AND RACE
RACE
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Veblen argued that there are individual and racial difference in instincts
• Europeans had an advantage over “lower cultures”
• Europeans are better able to equipped to adapt to changing environments
• Lower cultures have racial homogeneity, therefore are not able to adapt as well
in changing environments
HIGHER EDUCATION
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Science and Scholarship are the purpose of education
• Veblen believed that business was becoming the goal of education
•
Recognized the value of educated students, but did not believe it was the job of
Universities to educate the masses
• Secondary, professional, and trade schools
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Upset with sports, fraternities, clubs and extracurricular activities at Universities
• These led to career choices in business
WHAT DO SOCIOLOGIST GAIN?
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The Theory of the Leisure Class
•
Veblen’s most famous and lasting contribution
• Helped Sociologist to understand why people spend their money and time in nonproductive ways
•
Evolutionary Theory
• Helped Sociologist to understand one contributing factor of weather a society
survives or not-technology
LIMITATIONS
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The Theory of Leisure Class
• Saw Sports negatively
• Leisure choices can tell you more about a person than their career
• Sports can help with the following
• Builds friendships
• Gives participants and spectators a sense of belonging
• Reminder of some stability in an ever changing world
• Thought that by granting someone status as a result of exploitation and non productive behavior compromised the value of routine labor