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
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.
respect revulsion decorum
There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as a breach of decorum.
lasts analysis use
All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.
law effort requirements
English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort; failure to acquire it is easy of detection.
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.
self complacency possession
So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to that complacency which we call self-respect.
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.
class innovation characteristics
Conservatism, being an upper-class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar. ...Innovation is bad form.
grew grow outcome questions research serious
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.
business cost net rest sound
It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community.