Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblenwas an American economist and sociologist. He was famous as a witty critic of capitalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth30 July 1857
CityCato, WI
CountryUnited States of America
technology machines use
The machine technology takes no cognizance of conventionally established rules of precedence; it knows neither manners nor breeding and can make no use of any of the attributes of worth.
ownership arise wells
From the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products of their industry, and so there arises the ownership of things as well as of persons.
lines might canon
In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty.
wealth scales difficult
It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth.
habit scales standards
A standard of living is of the nature of habit. ...it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual.
consistency maintenance tradition
Conservatism is the maintenance of conventions already in force.
mistake hands errors
The visible imperfections of hand-wrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, or serviceability, or both.
lasts analysis use
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.
trends systematic waste
The individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction of serviceability to the life process. When it is attempted to assimilate systematic waste or futility, as an end in life, into this organic complex, there presently supervenes a revulsion.
possession aesthetic objects
The aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor universally heightened by possession.
patriotism politics spirit
Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.
aptitude habit individual
Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of life.
investing doe process
Instead of investing in the goods as they pass between producer and consumer, as the merchant does, the businessman now invests in the processes of industry.
patriotic eye dust
Into the cultural and technological system of the modern world, the patriotic spirit fits like dust in the eyes and sand in the bearings. Its net contribution to the outcome is obscuration, distrust, and retardation at every point where it touches the fortunes of modern mankind.