The Theory Of The Leisure Class By Thorstein Veblen

I read The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen; The book was published in 1899 by Macmillan. From a biography on Encyclopedia Britannica I found that Veblen was a graduate of Carleton College, and went on to study at John Hopkins and Yale; Earning a Ph.D. from the latter in 1884. After spending seven years reading on his father’s farm he went to Cornell as a graduate student, and then on to the University of Chicago where he became an instructor in economics in 1896. He published The Theory of Business Enterprise in 1904, and after being forced to leave the University of Chicago due to his personal life he gained an associate professorship at Stanford University in 1906. He was eventually forced to leave Stanford for personal reasons …show more content…
While at one point in time these attitudes may have been beneficial for the continuation of the species in regards to having enough food to live through the winter, or keeping the population of the tribe at sustainable levels they have outlived their welcome. Hording goods (especially those of a luxury nature) no longer serves to benefit society, and we no longer need to procreate like rabbits to maintain adequate population levels. Veblen seems to believe that with the obsolescence of these modes of thought the way forward is through the advancement of technology for the good of the …show more content…
We buy homes that are outside our price range (that creditors gladly approve loans for) that are much too large to be utilitarian, we buy automobiles whose price far exceeds its useful value, we buy clothes such as fifty dollar t-shirts that are made exactly the same as their six dollar equivalents in order to show the world we have the money to do so, and we upgrade items for items of limited functional improvement just to display that we have the newest and best there is to