Thorstein Veblen Quotes - American Economist, Sociologist's Views on Dichotomy, Fascism, Capitalism, Consumerism, Technological Determinism, Profiteering, Exploitation

Thorstein Bunde Veblen was born on 30 July 1857 in Cato, Wisconsin, USA. Veblen was a famous American economist and sociologist who emerged as a renowned critic of capitalism during his lifetime. In his most famous book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen coined the concepts of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure. Veblen laid the foundation for the perspective of institutional economics. Contemporary economists regard Veblen's distinction between institutions and technology as what is known as the Veblenian dichotomy. As a leading intellectual of the Progressive Era in the US, Veblen strongly criticized production for profit. His emphasis on conspicuous consumption greatly influenced economists who were engaged in non-Marxist critiques of fascism, capitalism, and technological determinism. Thorstein Veblen laid the foundation for the perspective of institutional economics with his critique of traditional static economic theory.

Weblen was an economist as well as a sociologist who rejected his contemporaries who viewed the economy as an autonomous, fixed and static entity. Weblen disagreed with his peers because he was of the firm opinion that the economy is significantly embedded in social institutions. Rather than isolating economics from the social sciences, Weblen saw the relationship between the economy and social and cultural phenomena. The study of institutional economics generally viewed economic institutions as part of a broader process of cultural evolution. While economic institutionalism never became a dominant school of economic thought, it allowed economists to explore economic problems from a perspective that included social and cultural phenomena. It allowed economists to view the economy as an evolving entity of bounded rationality. In his documentary film Requiem for the American Dream, Noam Chomsky quotes the phrase coined by Veblen, coining the consumerism and its role in controlling people's attitudes. One of the best ways to control people in terms of their attitudes is to do what the great political economist Thorstein Veblen called coining the consumerism. If you can mold desires... make the essence of life about getting what is within your reach, they will fall into the trap of becoming consumers. In sociology, trained incompetence is the condition in which one's abilities act as inadequacies or blind spots. This means that people's past experiences can lead to wrong decisions when circumstances change. Veblen coined the phrase in 1914 in The Instinct of Workmanship and the Industrial Arts. Essayist Kenneth Burke later expanded the theory of trained incompetence, first in his book Permanence and Change (1935) and then in two subsequent analyses.

The Veblenian dichotomy is a concept that Veblen first suggested in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) and made into a fully analytical theory in The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904). For Veblen, institutions determine how technologies are used. Some institutions are more formal than others. A project for the ideal Veblen economist is to identify institutions that are too wasteful and pursue institutional adjustments to make the institutional use of technology more industrial. Veblen defines the ceremonial as those that support tribal legends or traditional preservation attitudes and conduct related to the past while the industrial orients itself toward technological imperatives assessing value from the ability to control future outcomes. The theory suggests that while every society relies on tools and skills to support the life process, every society also features a formal stratified structure of status that runs counter to the needs of the instrumental (technical) aspects of group life. The Veblen dichotomy is still very relevant today and is applied to thinking around digital transformation.

Here are some thoughtful, exemplary, inspiring, profound, interesting quotes from Thorstein Veblen

The conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of prestige for the gentleman of leisure.

The thief or swindler who has acquired great wealth by his crime has a better chance than a petty thief of escaping the severe punishment of the law.

The ownership of wealth confers honour, a disgraceful distinction.

The absolute poor, and all persons whose energies are wholly absorbed in the daily struggle for subsistence are conservative because they cannot attempt to think of the day after tomorrow just as the extremely rich are conservative because they have little opportunity of being dissatisfied with today's situation.

Workers want pride and pleasure in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful, to be treated with honour and respect as brothers and sisters.

Only a man of a neurotic temperament can maintain his self-respect long in the face of the insults of his fellow-men.

Only persons of a neurotic temperament can long maintain their self-esteem in the face of the insults of their fellows.

Beauty is usually the gratification of costly sentiment disguised in the name of beauty.

Any man going on a business trip will not be missed if he does not arrive.

Thus, the semi-peaceful gentleman of leisure not only consumes more than the minimum necessities of life, but his consumption undergoes specialization as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and in great measure the best in food, drink, intoxicants, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, arms, furnishings, entertainment, amulets, and idols or deities.

Abstaining from labor is the traditional evidence of wealth and hence the traditional mark of social prestige.

With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of emulation is probably the strongest and most vigilant and persistent of economic motives.

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.

The institution of the leisure class has gradually emerged during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism, or more precisely during the transition from a peaceful life to a habit of constant war.

The initial rise of leisure as a means of prestige can be traced back to the archaic distinction between noble and ignoble employments. Leisure is respectable and becomes obligatory partly because it shows exemption from ignoble labor.

The need for conspicuous dissipation ... exists as a binding norm which selectively shapes and maintains our sense of the beautiful.

The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, compared with the brilliance of that visible part of their lives which goes on before the eyes of observers.

The first duty of an editor is to understand the sentiment of his reader, and then to tell them what they prefer to believe.

The habits of thought of the individual form an organic complex, the tendency of which is inevitably in the direction of usefulness to the life process. When an attempt is made to incorporate systematic waste or futility into this biological complex as the goal of life, an abomination immediately arises.

Instead of investing in the exchange of goods between producer and consumer, as the businessman does, the businessman now invests in the processes of industry.

The dog presents itself in our favor by encouraging our tendency to dominate.

In order to perform well in the eyes of the community it is necessary to come to a certain somewhat indefinable conventional standard of wealth.

The main use of servants is proof that they are a demonstration of the master's ability to pay.

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