Author: Leonard A. DentePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Veblen's Theory of Social Change
Author: Leonard A. DentePublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272
Book Description
Veblen's Theory of Social Change
Author: Leonard Anthony DentePublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS
Author: THORSTEIN. VEBLENPublisher:
ISBN: 9781033057698
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Thorstein Veblen on Culture and Society
Author: Stjepan MestrovicPublisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412932998
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Book Description
Best known as the author of the acclaimed book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Thorstein Veblen was much more than a one-book wonder. He is in fact a seminal classical sociologist who made many original contributions to the study of culture and society. This inspired selection conveys the full zest and penetrating insights of Veblen′s writings.The collection comes with a full-length essay which demonstrates the continuing relevance of Veblen′s sociology.
The Sum of Small Things
Author: Elizabeth Currid-HalkettPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400884691
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today’s world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption—like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children’s growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society “the aspirational class” and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.
Veblen
Author: Charles CamicPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674659724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 505
Book Description
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.”
The Instinct of Workmanship
Author: Thorstein VeblenPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Industrial arts
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
The Theory of the Leisure Class (Unabridged)
Author: Thorstein VeblenPublisher:
ISBN: 9781611041187
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
The Theory of the Leisure Class was first published in 1899 by the Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen while he was a professor at the University of Chicago. The Theory of the Leisure Class is considered one of the first detailed critiques of consumerism. In the book, Veblen argues that economic life is driven not by notions of utility, but by social vestiges from pre-historic times. Drawing examples from the contemporary period and anthropology, he held that much of today's society is a variation on early tribal life. According to Veblen, beginning with primitive tribes, people began to adopt a division of labor along certain lines. The "higher status" group monopolized war and hunting, while farming and cooking were considered inferior work. He argued this was due to barbarism and conquest of some tribes over others. Once conquerors took control, they relegated the more menial and labor-intensive jobs to the subjugated people, while retaining the more warlike and violent work for themselves. It did not matter that these "menial" jobs did more to support society (in Veblen's view) than the "higher" ones. Even within tribes that were initially free of conquerors or violence, Veblen argued that certain individuals, upon watching this labor division take place in other groups, began to emulate the behavior in higher-status groups. Veblen referred to the emerging ruling class as the "leisure class." He argued that while this class did perform some work and contributed to the tribe's well-being, it did so in only a minor, peripheral, and largely symbolic manner. For example, although hunting could provide the tribe with food, it was not as productive or reliable as farming or animal domestication, and compared with the latter types of work, was relatively easier to perform. Likewise, while tribes occasionally required warriors if a conflict broke out, Veblen argued that militaristic members of the leisure class retained their position-and, with it, exemption from menial work-even during the extremely long stretches of time when there was no war, even though they were perfectly capable of contributing to the tribe's "menial" work during times of peace. At the same time, Veblen claimed that the leisure class managed to retain its position through both direct and indirect coercion. For example, the leisure class reserved for itself the "honor" of warfare, and often prevented members of the lower classes from owning weapons or learning how to fight. At the same time, it made the rest of the tribe feel dependent on the leisure class's continued existence due to the fear of hostilities from other tribes or, as religions began to form, the hostility of imagined deities. Veblen argued that the first priests and religious leaders were members of the leisure class. To Veblen, society never grew out of this stage; it simply evolved different forms and expressions. For example, he noted that during the Middle Ages, only the nobility was allowed to hunt and fight wars. Likewise, in modern times, he noted that manual laborers usually make less money than white-collar workers.
Thorstein Veblen
Author: John Cunningham WoodPublisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415074872
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 716
Book Description
138 articles are arranged thematically to give easy access to the intellectual processes of this influencial economist. Volume 1 deals with his life and perspectives, volume 2 with "political economy" and volume 3 on "Specialized topics
Paradigms of Social Change
Author: Waltraud SchelklePublisher: Campus Verlag
ISBN: 9783593365336
Category : Social change
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description