Download or read book Veblen written by Charles Camic and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new biography of the thinker who demolished accepted economic theories in order to expose how people of economic and social privilege plunder their wealth from society’s productive men and women. Thorstein Veblen was one of America’s most penetrating analysts of modern capitalist society. But he was not, as is widely assumed, an outsider to the social world he acidly described. Veblen overturns the long-accepted view that Veblen’s ideas, including his insights about conspicuous consumption and the leisure class, derived from his position as a social outsider. In the hinterlands of America’s Midwest, Veblen’s schooling coincided with the late nineteenth-century revolution in higher education that occurred under the patronage of the titans of the new industrial age. The resulting educational opportunities carried Veblen from local Carleton College to centers of scholarship at Johns Hopkins, Yale, Cornell, and the University of Chicago, where he studied with leading philosophers, historians, and economists. Afterward, he joined the nation’s academic elite as a professional economist, producing his seminal books The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise. Until late in his career, Veblen was, Charles Camic argues, the consummate academic insider, engaged in debates about wealth distribution raging in the field of economics. Veblen demonstrates how Veblen’s education and subsequent involvement in those debates gave rise to his original ideas about the social institutions that enable wealthy Americans—a swarm of economically unproductive “parasites”—to amass vast fortunes on the backs of productive men and women. Today, when great wealth inequalities again command national attention, Camic helps us understand the historical roots and continuing reach of Veblen’s searing analysis of this “sclerosis of the American soul.”

Download or read book Conspicuous Consumption written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2005-08-25 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With its wry portrayal of a shallow, materialistic 'leisure class' obsessed by clothes, cars, consumer goods and climbing the social ladder, this withering satire on modern capitalism is as pertinent today as when it was written over a century ago.

Download or read book The Theory of the Leisure Class written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Aakar Books. This book was released on 2005-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Theory Of The Leisure Class, His First And Best-Known Work, Thorstein Veblen Challenges Some Of Man 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 Spending Which Satisfies No Real Need But Is A Mark Of Prestige.The Process Veblen Criticized Continues Today The Same Worship Of An Empty Scale Of Values, The Same Urge To Prove Oneself Better Than One S Neighbor By The Conspicuous Accumulation Of Useless Objects And By Time And Money-Wasting Activities.

Download or read book Thorstein Veblen written by Elizabeth Jorgensen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A definitive biography of the man who coined the expression "conspicuous consumption". Based on newly released archival sources, this book sets the facts straight on more than 60 years of myths and misinformation concerning the highly regarded economist and sociologist.

Download or read book Thorstein Veblen written by John P. Diggins and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1999-06-10 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fired by Stanford and the University of Chicago but recommended by his peers to the presidency of the American Economic Association, Thorstein Veblen remains a baffling figure. In part because he was an eccentric who shunned publicity. Veblen is best known to the public as coiner of the term "conspicuous consumption", and known to scholars as one of many social critics of the reform-minded Progressive Era. This is a critical biography, originally published as "The Bard of Savagery". It attempts to unravel the riddles that surround his reputation, and to assess his varied and important contributions to modern social theory.

Download or read book Thorstein Veblen and His America written by Joseph Dorfman and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen written by David A. Reisman and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Fascination with the economics of Thorstein Veblen is today no less than it was fifty years ago. Many books have been written about his life and ideas. But David Reisman breaks new ground by providing one of the best and most comprehensive explainations of Veblen's thought. Written in a strikingly fresh and lucid style, this work is one of the landmarks of the literature on this great and enduringly relevant economist.' Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire, UK 'Considering the inability of conventional economics to comprehend the socio-economic convulsions over the past few years in so many countries, it is surely time to try something else. David Reisman's The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen thus appears at a most opportune moment. This original analytical study is the best introduction into Veblen's work that I know of, and will, I trust, encourage a renewal of interest in possibly the most unjustly neglected of economists. Reisman's primary contention that there is despite obstacles to comprehension created by Veblen's personal idiosyncrasies and unconventional literary style a Veblen structure of thought, or general system, is fully confirmed by the evidence presented in his book. In this demonstration lies its great merit.' Samuel Hollander, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel 'Veblen is a notoriously difficult economist to read and understand. He was, however, unequivocal in his scorn for neoclassical economics, whose demise he took pleasure in predicting. In light of the limp excuses offered by the economics profession for its failure to anticipate the current global financial crisis, Reisman's incisive analysis of Veblen's writings suggests that were Veblen alive today, he would be revelling in schadenfreude. This timely book will make uncomfortable reading for neoclassical economists.' Douglas Mair, Heriot-Watt University, UK 'Reisman offers a brilliant distillation of Veblen's jaundiced purview of the social, psychological and pecuniary motivations that have driven man the social animal in his economic life down the ages, from noble savage to predatory barbarian in his ancient, modern, and potential guises. Avoiding hagiography, this book exposes Veblen's exaggerations as well as his compelling institutional insights into the evolution of capitalism and socialism. Reisman's own intellectual sweep in explaining and criticising Veblen demonstrate political economy at its best.' Roger Sandilands, University of Strathclyde, UK Thorstein Veblen was a multidisciplinary social scientist whose original insights continue to inspire debate. Rather than focusing on allocation, markets and scarcity, his perspective on economics was rather one of Darwinian evolution and perpetual development, unfolding conventions and interpersonal constraints. This interdisciplinary and comprehensive book determines that Veblen's disparate theories of conspicuous consumption, imperial Germany, the giant corporation and the speculation-led cycle all add up to a consistent and coherent world-view. Veblen was a fascinating author who deserves to be read for himself. This penetrating new interpretation demonstrates that he also identified a serious threat to property and peace in the form of irresponsible finance and frustrated workmanship. He believed corporate capitalism was at risk from its internal contradictions. This lucid book assesses the logic behind Veblen's stark and apocalyptic vision. The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen examines all of Veblen's books and articles, revealing that they are closely integrated to form an organic whole. It will prove valuable for scholars and students interested in sociological theory, politics and political economy, history and institutional economics.

Download or read book The Engineers and the Price System written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Viking Adult. This book was released on 1921 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Higher Learning in America written by Thorstein Veblen and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Instinct of Workmanship written by Thorstein Veblen and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Veblen in Perspective written by Stephen Edgell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work discusses the impact and contemporary relevance of the work of Thorstein Veblen, as well as the source of his ideas. It suggests that he was one of the first modern sociologists of consumption whose analysis of contemporary display and fashion anticipated later theories and research.

Download or read book Thorstein Veblen written by David Riesman and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a brilliant and unconventional study of one of the most challenging figures in modern social and economic thought. David Riesman has chosen a deliberately personal method of exposition and evaluation, and he is by no means a disciple. He says of Veblen: “I find him more often interesting than attractive, more often pungent than wise.” By approaching Veblen subjectively and in a critical spirit, Riesman has arrived at an estimate of the man that is objective and balanced. Veblen's ideas and attitudes are carefully examined, with particular attention to his conviction that “the instinct of workmanship” was the constructive element in life, and to his fundamental principle of “idle curiosity.” Veblen is seen as a man with a passionate moral sense whose method was irony coupled with research. Riesman makes the interesting point that the author of The Theory of the Leisure Class was episodically a passionate, even revolutionary reformer, in contrast to a career primarily as an intellectual skeptic. Riesman looks behind the ideas, searching for their origins in Veblen's life, with the result that one finishes the book with a genuine sense of the strange man who is its subject. Riesman concludes that Thorstein Veblen is important not so much for his specific contribution to economic thought as for his stance toward the economy and his fellow economists. For us today, Riesman adds, Veblen's great value inheres in his way of seeing. The new introduction by Mestrovic provides an appreciation of Riesman, no less than Veblen. David Riesman is the Henry Ford II Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences at Harvard University. He has also taught at the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins University. Among his most important books are The Lonely Crowd; Faces in the Crowd; Individualism Reconsidered; and Constraint and Variety in American Education. His collection, Abundance for What?, confirms his place as the foremost sociologist of education in the modern era. Stjepan G. Mestrovic is a senior social theorist in his own right. He is currently located at Texas A&M University, where he is a professor of sociology.

Download or read book The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor written by Thorstein Veblen and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1899, this is a work by Thorstein Veblen, an American economist and sociologist. It is an article written for the American Journal of Sociology publication outlining some of his theories on work. We are republishing this work with a brand new introductory biography of the author with the aim of placing it in the context of his other writings and achievements. The following passage is an extract from the article: 'It is one of the commonplaces of the received economic theory that work is irksome. Many a discussion proceeds on this axiom that, so far as regards economic matters, men desire above all things to get the goods produced by labor and to avoid the labor by which the goods are produced. In a general way the common-sense opinion is well in accord with current theory on this head. According to the common-sense-ideal, the economic beatitude lies in an unrestrained consumption of goods, without work; whereas the perfect economic affliction is unremunerated labor. Man instinctively revolts at effort that goes to supply the means of life'

Download or read book Taylored Lives written by Martha Banta and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific management: Technology spawned it, Frederick Winslow Taylor championed it, Thorstein Veblen dissected it, Henry Ford implemented it. By the turn of the century, practical visionaries prided themselves on having arrived at "the one best way" both to increase industrial productivity and to regulate the vagaries of human behavior. Nothing escaped the efficiency craze, and in this vivid, wide-ranging book, Martha Banta explores its effect on the culture at large. To the Taylorists, everthing needed tidying up: government, business, warfare, households, and, most of all, the workplace, with its unruly influx of strangers into the native scenes. Taylored Lives gives us a striking sense of what it was like to live, work, love, and die when time, motion, and emotions were checked off on worksheets and management charts. Canvasing the culture, Banta shows how the cause of efficiency was taken up in narratives, of every sort - in mail-order catalogs, popular romances, newspaper stories, and personal testimonials "from below", as well as in the canonical works of writers from Henry Adams and William James, to Sinclair Lewis, Nathanael West, and William Faulkner. The strategies of impassioned theorists and hands-on practitioners affected the kinds-of narratives produced in the controversy over the pros and cons of the management culture; they bear an eerie resemblance to the means by which we today, storytellers all, keep trying to make sense of our own chaotic times. This interdisciplinary work charts the development of a managerial culture from its start in the steel mills of Pennsylvania through its spread across the American experience in an interlocking series of social systems andeveryday practices. Banta scrutinizes narrative strategies employed by "inscribers" as diverse as Josephine Goldmark, Theodore Roosevelt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anzia Yezierska, Richard Harding Davis, Booker T. Washington, and Theodore Dreiser; by Taylor himself, as well as Veblen and Ford; by women who toiled on the factory floor; by writers of dream-copy for ready-made houses; and by Buster Keaton in his silent treatment of the dysfuntional honeymoon home. With its historical scope and its provocative readings of assorted narratives, this richly illustrated book offers a complex and disturbing picture of a period, as well as invaluable insights into the way theory-making continually makes and breaks cultures. A remarkable work, Taylored Lives confirms Martha Banta's place as one of our leading cultural and literary critics.

Download or read book Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times written by Thorstein Veblen and published by New York, Viking Press. This book was released on 1923 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Veblen s Century written by Irving Horowitz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-28 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thorstein Veblen has a place of honor reserved for truly important figures. Economist, iconoclast, social critic, and moral judge of the American way of life, he has continued to attract the attention of students and scholars alike. People from every spectrum of political thought and every branch of the social sciences have been drawn to his work-sometimes in praise, other times in criticism, but always with a sense of measuring what Veblen said and often how he said it.Veblen was, in the final analysis, an anthropologist of America as an advanced culture, as much a figure of the young twentieth century of America triumphant, as Tocqueville was a figure of the young nineteenth century of America ascending. We share with Veblen a sense of the observer peering at the complex foundation of behavior, whether such behavior is defined in terms of attitudes toward work and leisure, wealth and poverty, and finally, global war and peace.An examination of the contributors to the Veblen literature in this masterful volume serves to make clear just how vital Veblen was and remains to our cultural landscape. Whether the reader selects from or reads all of the statements by David Riesman, Douglas Dowd, Max Lerner, E. Digby Baltzell, Wesley Clair Mitchell, C. Wright Mills, Daniel Bell, and the other outstanding participants in Veblen's Century, the pulsating vitality of Veblen himself is well captured. Indeed, a little bit of Veblen is encapsulated in and by his commentators.Veblen's Century originated as a project initiated in 1974 by Professor Horowitz to reissue the entire corpus of Veblen's writings in new editions with introductions written expressly with this larger purpose of bringing the master of economic theory to the attention of a new generation. That the project took more than a quarter century to complete is indicative of the care with which each new essay is crafted. In addition, with Transaction being identified as the home of Veblen, books on him were offered to

Download or read book A New Economic Theory of Public Support for the Arts written by Arnaldo Barone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should the arts receive public support? Can the arts survive in a modern capitalist society? Can economics shed light on the nature of public support, and whether there is a rationale for public intervention? This book undertakes to examine these questions as it explores the ways government and public resources are used to support the arts. This book applies a Veblenian approach to understanding economic development to investigate public support for the arts in an effort to determine whether this approach can elucidate economic rationales for public support. Divided into three parts, the first provides basic information on public support for the arts by surveying support in the United States and Australia. Part two includes a neoclassical overview of the topic while part three presents Veblen's ideas on economic development. This book will be of interests to researchers concerned with cultural and institutional economics, as well as political economy.