In his scathing The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential goods for the sake of personal profit. Fashion, beauty, animals, sports, the home, the clergy, scholars--all are assessed for their true usefulness and found wanting. Indeed, Veblen's critique covers all aspects of modern life from dress, class, the position of women, home decoration, industry, business, and sport, to religion, scholarship, and education. The targets of Veblen's coruscating satire are as evident today as they were a century ago, and his book still has the power to shock and enlighten. Martha Banta's introduction illuminates Veblen's uncompromising arguments as it highlights the literary force of Veblen's writing and its influence on later American writers such as Edith Wharton, Henry James, Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She also sheds light on his critique of the plight of women and his evolutionary arguments as they relate to modern society.
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Veblen's classic position on social status is intertwined with his interest in economic class and the political prospects of that class. The Vested Interests is squarely in that tradition. It aims to show how and why a discrepancy has arisen between the accepted principles of law and custom that underlie the business enterprise and the efficient management of industry. He also speculates on the civil and political difficulties inspired by this discrepancy between business civilization, and the social order.

Many of the essays in this collection originally appeared in Dial from October 1918 to January 1919. The Vested Interests includes: "The Instability of Knowledge and Belief," "The Stability of Law and Custom," "The State of the Industrial Arts," "Free Income," "The Vested Interests," "The Divine Rights of Nations," "Live and Let Live," and "The Vested Interests and the Common Man."

In his new introduction, Irving Louis Horowitz discusses Veblen as an economist turned sociologist. He explores the dichotomies in Veblen's approach, describing it as radical in input and conservative in outcome. Veblen was analytical in design, but ideological in rhetoric. He was materialist in his economic analysis, but idealistic in his emphasis on law and custom as regulatory mechanisms of the management of society. Horowitz also describes the difficulties Veblen experienced in placing his steadfastly nineteenth century ideals in the context of 1920s America. This is the final volume in Transaction's series of the essential works of Thorstein Veblen. It will be of central interest to sociologists as well as economists, particularly those interested in the history of ideas.

Veblen's classic position on social status is intertwined with his interest in economic class and the political prospects of that class. The Vested Interests is squarely in that tradition. It aims to show how and why a discrepancy has arisen between the accepted principles of law and custom that underlie the business enterprise and the efficient management of industry. He also speculates on the civil and political difficulties inspired by this discrepancy between business civilization, and the social order. Many of the essays in this collection originally appeared in Dial from October 1918 to January 1919. The Vested Interests includes: "The Instability of Knowledge and Belief," "The Stability of Law and Custom," "The State of the Industrial Arts," "Free Income," "The Vested Interests," "The Divine Rights of Nations," "Live and Let Live," and "The Vested Interests and the Common Man." In his new introduction, Irving Louis Horowitz discusses Veblen as an economist turned sociologist. He explores the dichotomies in Veblen's approach, describing it as radical in input and conservative in outcome. Veblen was analytical in design, but ideological in rhetoric. He was materialist in his economic analysis, but idealistic in his emphasis on law and custom as regulatory mechanisms of the management of society. Horowitz also describes the difficulties Veblen experienced in placing his steadfastly nineteenth century ideals in the context of 1920s America. This is the final volume in Transaction's series of the essential works of Thorstein Veblen. It will be of central interest to sociologists as well as economists, particularly those interested in the history of ideas.

The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, originally issued in 1914, is described by Murray Murphey as his "most important work." In this volume that the theoretical foundations are put forth on full display. Veblen's juxtaposition of the instinctive values of community welfare in contrast to the pecuniary values of commercial exchange was the basis of his later, more famous works. The book makes plain Veblen's basic dichotomy between technological institutions for making goods and the pecuniary institutions for making money. Veblen's book is taken up with the casual processes in the history of culture centered on human instincts and habits. For him, a change in the natural or social conditions produces effects only by changing the behavior of people. The whole panoply of habits, instincts, and motives, points to a theory of social and cultural change which substantially differs from the pragmatic tradition that swept America in the early decades of this century. Veblen makes so many unique contributions and insights that his work outlives the limitations of its theoretical shell. As is the case for most Veblen's works, footnotes and references are sparse, no index is provided, and the reader is left to fill in the missing paraphernalia the way one does with a novel. Indeed, the reader is swept along Veblen's captivating rhetoric in seven brilliant chapters moving from the instincts in primitive technology, to the current state of industrial arts, to the examination of predatory culture invited to the civilizational table by the competitive system, and finally into a contrast of handicrafts and machine industry. Veblen offers a dramaturgy and a morality of the industrial order of his time: much has changed, but a great deal remains the same and is easily identifiable by the discerning reader. In this passage through text and time, Murphey is the perfect guide, displaying a keen knowledge of philosophy, psychology, and the American context in which Veblen worked. Here we have a companion essay worthy of The Instinct of Workmanship and its author.

In his The Engineers and the Price System, originally published in 1921, Veblen observes that World War One demanded industrial innovations, and he was among the first to predict the need for changes in managerial struc-ture. Veblen saw that industrial output was more dependent upon techno-crats managers and capital innova-tors than financiers. In The Engineers and the Price System, Veblen applies economic theory to modern industrial society. He demon-strates that revolutionary change can be advanced by managers and engi-neers upon whose "brains and skills" the state of industrial arts depends. In his uniquely comprehensive in-troduction, Daniel Bell discusses the associations and attitudes which mark Veblen as the prophetic outsider he remained most of his life.

On its original publication in 1919, The Place of Science in Modern Civilization was recognized as a major contribution, and today Veblen continues to command attention and respect. This volume includes some of his most seminal work, essays that have critical, almost devastating implications for capitalist society and mainstream economic theory as well as Marxism and socialism in general. The continuing power of Veblen's work derives both from the penetration and range of his analysis and the arguable failure of modern society and social science theory to change in any material respect since he worked. The continuing relevance of his topics and ideas is manifest. In this volume in particular, Veblen addresses controversies over the relations of deduction and induction and efforts to produce truth, belief systems, and language, disputes about the significance of business mergers and acquisitions, and questions about the historical meaning and status of socialism. All of these are subjects of continuing interest and concern. The first six essays are fundamental contributions to the study of the preconceptions that drive thought and modern science and their origins. The next nine essays apply Veblen's thinking to critiques of other economists and capitalism. Three of these nine essays represent fundamental components of Veblen's view of capitalism and its problems are of lasting interpretive and analytic value. The final three essays in the book, and in particular the last two, are examples of a genre of thinking which, while not uncommon among social scientists of the period in which Veblen worked haven been discredited and certainly have no lasting value, being conjectural history using such concepts as natural selection. As Warren Samuels notes in his stimulating introduction to this new edition, "Veblen was heterodox, iconoclastic, sardonic, caustic, and satiric. He also was brilliant, penetrating, original, courageous, literarily dramatic, and unique, as well as intellectually distant." This collection will be of interest to economists and other social scientists interested in the specific topics addressed here, as well as researchers in the history of ideas.

Essays in Our Changing Order is the ninth volume in the collected works of America's pre-eminent social scientist. Each volume has a new opening essay, in this case, a comprehensive review of Veblen's works by Scott Bowman that stands by itself as a premier statement. Using an innovative framework, Bowman sees Veblen as concerned with three unifying themes: the dynamic interrelationships between instinct, habits of thought, environment, and social change in human evolution; the essential contradiction between business and industry sustained by the instinctual dominance of pecuniary exploit over workmanlike efficiency; and the role of ideological and animistic thinking in human affairs. This volume of Veblen's most important studies, published posthumously in 1936, illustrates and embellishes the themes Bowman outlines in a variety of ways, and is remarkable for its contemporanity and literary freshness. Veblen's editor, Leon Ardzrooni, divides the work into three major segments: essays on economics, including the history of the field; miscellaneous papers, which nearly all come to rest on matters of religion and philosophy; and what Ardzrooni calls war essays, which again reveal a very worldly and wise observer of current events and critic of national policies. What is so astonishing is the timeliness of these seemingly time bound concerns: whether dealing with the condition of women, the intellectual contributions of Jews, farm labor and unions, or the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution, Veblen confronts us with insights into still-unfinished business.

Essays in Our Changing Order is the ninth volume in the collected works of America's pre-eminent social scientist. Each volume has a new opening essay, in this case, a comprehensive review of Veblen's works by Scott Bowman that stands by itself as a premier statement. Using an innovative framework, Bowman sees Veblen as concerned with three unifying themes: the dynamic interrelationships between instinct, habits of thought, environment, and social change in human evolution; the essential contradiction between business and industry sustained by the instinctual dominance of pecuniary exploit over workmanlike efficiency; and the role of ideological and animistic thinking in human affairs.

This volume of Veblen's most important studies, published posthumously in 1936, illustrates and embellishes the themes Bowman outlines in a variety of ways, and is remarkable for its contemporanity and literary freshness. Veblen's editor, Leon Ardzrooni, divides the work into three major segments: essays on economics, including the history of the field; miscellaneous papers, which nearly all come to rest on matters of religion and philosophy; and what Ardzrooni calls war essays, which again reveal a very worldly and wise observer of current events and critic of national policies. What is so astonishing is the timeliness of these seemingly time bound concerns: whether dealing with the condition of women, the intellectual contributions of Jews, farm labor and unions, or the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution, Veblen confronts us with insights into still-unfinished business.

In The Theory of the Leisure Class, his first and best-known work, Thorstein Veblen challenges some of society's most cherished standards of behavior and, with devastating wit and satire, exposes the hollowness of many of our canons of taste, education, dress, and culture. Veblen uses the leisure class as his example because it is this class that sets the standards followed by every level of society. The sign of membership in the leisure class is exemption from industrial toil and the mark of success is lavish expenditure "conspicuous consumption" is the famous term he invented to describe somethings that satisfies no real need but is a mark of prestige. The process Veblen describes continues today, albeit in a more circuitous form.The Theory of the Leisure Class is part of an ongoing effort to make available the collected works of Veblen to a present-day audience of students and scholars.

Absentee Ownership is an inquiry into the economic situation as it has taken shape in the twentieth century, particularly as exemplified in the case of America. According to Thorstein Veblen, absentee ownership is the main and immediate controlling interest in the life of civilized men. It is the paramount issue between the civilized nations, and guides the conduct of their affairs at home and abroad. World War I, says Veblen, arose out of a conflict of absentee interests and the peace was negotiated with a view to stabilize them. Part I of the book is occupied with a summary description of that range of economic circumstances and that sequence of economic growth and change that led up through the nineteenth century and have come to a head in the twentieth century. Part II is an objective, theoretical analysis of those economic circumstances described in the first part of the book. Marion Levy writes in his introduction about the phrase "absentee ownership" and how it has a definite connotation, representing a dark figure in the economic system, a frustration of desired levels of self-sufficiency. In the early days, the giants of business enterprise had faces--Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Ford, Edison--but they all turned into faceless bureaucracies, says Levy. The giants may not have been nice, but they had faces and human traits. Absentee ownership wiped that out for the common man. Veblen's book continues to be of vital importance to the studies of economics, political theory, and sociology.

Absentee Ownership is an inquiry into the economic situation as it has taken shape in the twentieth century, particularly as exemplified in the case of America. According to Thorstein Veblen, absentee ownership is the main and immediate controlling interest in the life of civilized men. It is the paramount issue between the civilized nations, and guides the conduct of their affairs at home and abroad. World War I, says Veblen, arose out of a conflict of absentee interests and the peace was negotiated with a view to stabilize them.

Part I of the book is occupied with a summary description of that range of economic circumstances and that sequence of economic growth and change that led up through the nineteenth century and have come to a head in the twentieth century. Part II is an objective, theoretical analysis of those economic circumstances described in the first part of the book.

Marion Levy writes in his introduction about the phrase "absentee ownership" and how it has a definite connotation, representing a dark figure in the economic system, a frustration of desired levels of self-sufficiency. In the early days, the giants of business enterprise had faces--Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Ford, Edison--but they all turned into faceless bureaucracies, says Levy. The giants may not have been nice, but they had faces and human traits. Absentee ownership wiped that out for the common man. Veblen's book continues to be of vital importance to the studies of economics, political theory, and sociology.

The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, originally issued in 1914, is described by Murray Murphey as his "most important work." In this volume that the theoretical foundations are put forth on full display. Veblen's juxtaposition of the instinctive values of community welfare in contrast to the pecuniary values of commercial exchange was the basis of his later, more famous works. The book makes plain Veblen's basic dichotomy between technological institutions for making goods and the pecuniary institutions for making money.

Veblen's book is taken up with the casual processes in the history of culture centered on human instincts and habits. For him, a change in the natural or social conditions produces effects only by changing the behavior of people. The whole panoply of habits, instincts, and motives, points to a theory of social and cultural change which substantially differs from the pragmatic tradition that swept America in the early decades of this century. Veblen makes so many unique contributions and insights that his work outlives the limitations of its theoretical shell.

As is the case for most Veblen's works, footnotes and references are sparse, no index is provided, and the reader is left to fill in the missing paraphernalia the way one does with a novel. Indeed, the reader is swept along Veblen's captivating rhetoric in seven brilliant chapters moving from the instincts in primitive technology, to the current state of industrial arts, to the examination of predatory culture invited to the civilizational table by the competitive system, and finally into a contrast of handicrafts and machine industry.

Veblen offers a dramaturgy and a morality of the industrial order of his time: much has changed, but a great deal remains the same and is easily identifiable by the discerning reader. In this passage through text and time, Murphey is the perfect guide, displaying a keen knowledge of philosophy, psychology, and the American context in which Veblen worked. Here we have a companion essay worthy of The Instinct of Workmanship and its author.

On its original publication in 1919, The Place of Science in Modern Civilization was recognized as a major contribution, and today Veblen continues to command attention and respect. This volume includes some of his most seminal work, essays that have critical, almost devastating implications for capitalist society and mainstream economic theory as well as Marxism and socialism in general.

The continuing power of Veblen's work derives both from the penetration and range of his analysis and the arguable failure of modern society and social science theory to change in any material respect since he worked. The continuing relevance of his topics and ideas is manifest. In this volume in particular, Veblen addresses controversies over the relations of deduction and induction and efforts to produce truth, belief systems, and language, disputes about the significance of business mergers and acquisitions, and questions about the historical meaning and status of socialism. All of these are subjects of continuing interest and concern.

The first six essays are fundamental contributions to the study of the preconceptions that drive thought and modern science and their origins. The next nine essays apply Veblen's thinking to critiques of other economists and capitalism. Three of these nine essays represent fundamental components of Veblen's view of capitalism and its problems are of lasting interpretive and analytic value. The final three essays in the book, and in particular the last two, are examples of a genre of thinking which, while not uncommon among social scientists of the period in which Veblen worked haven been discredited and certainly have no lasting value, being conjectural history using such concepts as natural selection.

As Warren Samuels notes in his stimulating introduction to this new edition, "Veblen was heterodox, iconoclastic, sardonic, caustic, and satiric. He also was brilliant, penetrating, original, courageous, literarily dramatic, and unique, as well as intellectually distant." This collection will be of interest to economists and other social scientists interested in the specific topics addressed here, as well as researchers in the history of ideas.

In his The Engineers and the Price System, originally published in 1921, Veblen observes that World War One demanded industrial innovations, and he was among the first to predict the need for changes in managerial struc-ture. Veblen saw that industrial output was more dependent upon techno-crats--managers and capital innova-tors--than financiers.

In The Engineers and the Price System, Veblen applies economic theory to modern industrial society. He demon-strates that revolutionary change can be advanced by managers and engi-neers upon whose "brains and skills" the state of industrial arts depends.

In his uniquely comprehensive in-troduction, Daniel Bell discusses the associations and attitudes which mark Veblen as the prophetic outsider he remained most of his life.

Since its publication in 1918, Thorstein Veblen's The Higher Learning in America has remained a text that every serious student of the American university must confront. Intellectual historian Richard Teichgraeber brings us the first scholarly edition of Veblen's classic, thoroughly edited, annotated, and indexed. An extensive introduction discusses the book's composition and publishing history, Veblen's debts to earlier critics of the American university, and the place of The Higher Learning in America in current debates about the American university. Veblen's insights into the American university system at the outset of the twentieth century are as provocative today as they were when first published. Insisting that institutions of higher learning should be dedicated solely to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, he urged American universities to abandon commitments to extraneous pursuits such as athletics, community service, and vocational education. He also believed that the corporate model of governance-with university boards of trustees dominated by well-to-do businessmen and university presidents who functioned essentially as businessmen in academic dress-mandated unsavory techniques of salesmanship and self-promotion that threatened to reduce institutions of higher learning to the status of competitive business enterprises. With a detailed chronology, suggested readings, and comprehensive notes identifying events, individuals, and institutions to which Veblen alludes, this volume is sure to become the standard teaching text for Veblen's classic work and an invaluable resource for students of both the history and the current workings of the American university.

In The Theory of the Leisure Class, his first and best-known work, Thorstein Veblen challenges some of society's most cherished standards of behavior and, with devastating wit and satire, exposes the hollowness of many of our canons of taste, education, dress, and culture.

Veblen uses the leisure class as his example because it is this class that sets the standards followed by every level of society. The sign of membership in the leisure class is exemption from industrial toil and the mark of success is lavish expenditure--"conspicuous consumption" is the famous term he invented to describe somethings that satisfies no real need but is a mark of prestige. The process Veblen describes continues today, albeit in a more circuitous form.The Theory of the Leisure Class is part of an ongoing effort to make available the collected works of Veblen to a present-day audience of students and scholars.

Although Imperial Germany was begun before the United States entered World War I, little in the book however relates to that particular conflict. Rather, this is in large part a study of the divergencies in cultural development between the English-speaking peoples and the German-speaking peoples, and of the consequences this produced in economic and social spheres. Suppressed by war censors, Imperial Germany was again released after the war, and has assumed a place as a major contribution to economics and sociology alike.

The comments on the book have scarcely been altered by time. Charles A. Beard noted that "Veblen wrote for the centuries, not for the days, and his Imperial Germany ranks with his immortal Theory of Business Enterprise." Wesley C. Mitchell, reflecting on the book during World War II, wrote that "the natural causes that made Imperial Germany efficient are still at work under the Nazi regime, and the forecast that proved sound once may do so again." Lewis Mumford called Imperial Germany "still the best picture of the residual barbarisms in German civilization; the soil out of which Nazism grew."

This new edition is graced with a brilliant and insightful opening essay that is at once a commentary on Veblen's volume, and a statement of the historic status of the German economy and society. Written by Otto G. Mayer, director in a leading German "Think Tank," HWWA-Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung-Hamburg, editor of Intereconomics, a journal issued in English, and an author of major policy statements on economic and social issues, the new opening statement underscores the view of those who came before, that Veblen's book is "a treasure chest of knowledge."

Economic and social classic shows emptiness of cherished standards of taste, education, dress, and culture.