I read a print edition of this old classic economics reference perhaps ten years ago, and was so impressed that I recently downloaded the Dover Thrift edition ($1.33) to refresh my memory of the main points. The keen observations of this American economist from 120 years ago remain relevant even though many of his comments now seem to reflect a misogynist and dated world view. He is best remembered for his observations about the common preference of consumers for more expensive luxury goods of a certain brand even in the face of competitive brands of equal or even greater practical utility and lower cost- the so-called Veblen effect of the importance of social signalling in our purchases. This applies to everything from handbags or houses. He also popularized the terms ‘conspicuous consumption’ and ‘conspicuous waste.’
The author distinguishes several stages of societal development from the savage to the barbarian to the industrial. “In the sequence of cultural evolution, the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the beginning of ownership.” He views the origin of marriage as one kind of ownership, and as with slaves, more wives and more slaves signal less need to work and greater social status in some developing cultures. In wide ranging comments on war, sports, gambling, patriotism, religion, education, lawns, art collections, jewellery and ornaments, pets, clothing fashions, concepts of beauty, titles, trophies, priestly vestments and wasteful use of resources in places of worship, he shows that conspicuous consumption and conspicuous waste of resources is integral to the development of a leisure class and the transition from a barbarian to an industrial society. The lengthy discussion of the economic impact of religions reminded me of the more in-depth analysis of religions in Torkel Brekke’s Faithenomics, published 117 years later. He cannot be faulted for not anticipating the development of nuclear weapons, communism and naziism, the Internet, and the modern worsening problem of income inequality.
Looked at one way, this book reveals a damming picture of raw capitalism, 32 years after the publication of Das Kapital, although Veblen refrains from endorsing any particular economic system. Looked at another way, it just reveals timeless truths about basic human instincts. Some of the observations are clearly outdated and irrelevant, although there are still many kernels of timeless wisdom in Veblen’s observations. But I found that most of these were in the first half of the book, with ephemeral, quaintly antiquated and questionable associations clustered in the second half. If you are at all interested in modern economics, sociology, politics, and psychology, this book is worth skimming through.
Thanks, Andra.
The Passionate Reader 