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
beautiful brother dignity good joy labor pride respect sister treated useful wants
Labor wants also pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister
life beautiful eye
In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.
mean work-out analysis
It is a matter of course and of absolute necessity to the conduct of business, that any discretionary businessman must be free to deal or not to deal in any given case; to limit or withhold the equipment under his control, without reservation. Business discretion and business strategy, in fact, has no other means by to work out its aims. So that, in effect, all business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.
men effort agents
As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity-'teleological activity.' He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of being such an agent, he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort.
mean names community
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods.
mean class office
The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular opinion.