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Thorstein Veblen — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Early life and family background

Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, in Cato, Wisconsin, to Norwegian-American immigrant parents, Thomas Veblen and Kari Bunde. He was the sixth of twelve children.

His parents had emigrated from Valdres, Norway, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 16, 1847, with few funds and no knowledge of English. They migrated to Milwaukee via Drammen, Hamburg and Quebec. The trip took four and a half months. Despite their limited circumstances as immigrants, Thomas Veblen's knowledge in carpentry and construction, paired with his wife's supportive perseverance, allowed them to establish a family farm in Rice County, Minnesota, where they moved in 1864. (The Veblen farmstead, located near the town of Nerstrand, became a National Historic Landmark in 1981.) Kari Bunde was not formally trained as a physician, but she frequently provided medical treatment to surrounding areas.

Veblen began his schooling at age five. Although Norwegian was his first language, he learned English from neighbors and at school. His parents also learned to speak English fluently, though they continued to read predominantly Norwegian literature with and around their family on the farmstead. The family farm eventually grew more prosperous, allowing Veblen's parents to provide their children with formal education. Unlike most immigrant children of the time, Veblen and all of his siblings received training in lower schools and went on to receive higher education at nearby Carleton College. Veblen's sister, Emily, was reputedly the first daughter of Norwegian immigrants to graduate from an American college. The eldest Veblen child, Andrew Veblen, ultimately became a professor of physics at the University of Iowa and the father of one of America's leading mathematicians, Oswald Veblen of Princeton University.

Several commentators saw Veblen's ethnic-Norwegian background and his relative "isolation from American society" in Minnesota as essential to the understanding of his writings. Harvard University sociologist David Riesman maintained that Veblen's background as a child of immigrants meant that Veblen was alienated from his parents' original culture, but that his "living in a Norwegian society within America" made him unable to "assimilate and accept the available forms of Americanism" completely. According to Stanford University historian George M. Fredrickson (1959), the "Norwegian society" that Veblen lived in (Minnesota) was so "isolated" that when he left it "he was, in a sense, emigrating to America."

Academic career

After graduation from Yale in 1884, Veblen was essentially unemployed for seven years. Despite having strong letters of recommendation, he was unable to obtain a university position. It is possible that his dissertation research on "Ethical Grounds of a Doctrine of Retribution" (1884) was considered undesirable. However, this possibility can no longer be meaningfully evaluated because Veblen's dissertation has been missing from Yale since 1935. Apparently the only scholar who ever studied the dissertation was Joseph Dorfman, for his 1934 book Thorstein Veblen and His America. Dorfman says only that the dissertation, advised by evolutionary sociologist William Graham Sumner, studies such evolutionary thought as that of Herbert Spencer, as well as the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Also in 1884, Veblen wrote the first English-language study of Kant's third Critique, his Kant's Critique of Judgment, published in the July 1884 issue of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Some historians have also speculated that this failure to obtain employment was partially due to prejudice against Norwegians, while others attribute this to the fact that most universities and administrators considered him insufficiently educated in Christianity. Most academics at the time held divinity degrees, which Veblen did not have. Also, it did not help that Veblen openly identified as an agnostic, which was highly uncommon for the time. As a result, Veblen returned to his family farm, a stay during which he had claimed to be recovering from malaria. He spent those years recovering and reading voraciously. It is suspected that these difficulties in beginning his academic career later inspired portions of his book The Higher Learning in America (1918), in which he claimed that true academic values were sacrificed by universities in favor of their own self-interest and profitability.

In 1891, Veblen left the farm to return to graduate school to study economics at Cornell University under the guidance of economics professor James Laurence Laughlin. With the help of Professor Laughlin, who was moving to the University of Chicago, Veblen became a fellow at that university in 1892. Throughout his stay, he did much of the editorial work associated with the Journal of Political Economy, one of the many academic journals created during this time at the University of Chicago. Veblen used the journal as an outlet for his writings. His writings also began to appear in other journals, such as the American Journal of Sociology, another journal at the university. While he was mostly a marginal figure at the University of Chicago, Veblen taught several classes there.

In 1899, Veblen published his first and best-known book, titled The Theory of the Leisure Class. This did not immediately improve Veblen's position at the University of Chicago. He requested a raise after the completion of his first book, but this was denied.

Veblen's students at Chicago considered his teaching "dreadful". Stanford students considered his teaching style "boring", but this was more excused than some of Veblen's personal affairs. He offended Victorian sentiments with extramarital affairs while at the University of Chicago. At Stanford in 1909, Veblen was ridiculed again for being a womanizer and an unfaithful husband. As a result, he was forced to resign from his position, which made it very difficult for him to find another academic position. One story claims that he was fired from Stanford after Jane Stanford sent him a telegram from Paris, having disapproved of Veblen's support of Chinese workers in California. (The fact that Jane Stanford was already dead by 1905, while Veblen was appointed in 1906, casts doubt on this story.)

With the help of Herbert J. Davenport, a friend who was the head of the economics department at the University of Missouri, Veblen accepted a position there in 1911. Veblen, however, did not enjoy his stay at Missouri. This was in part due to his position as a lecturer being of lower rank than his previous positions and for lower pay. Veblen also strongly disliked Columbia, Missouri, the town where the university was located. Although he may not have enjoyed his stay at Missouri, in 1914 he did publish another of his best-known books, The Instincts of Worksmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts (1914). After World War I began, Veblen published Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (1915). He considered warfare a threat to economic productivity and contrasted the authoritarian politics of Germany with the democratic tradition of Britain, noting that industrialization in Germany had not produced a progressive political culture.

By 1917, Veblen moved to Washington, D.C. to work with a group that had been commissioned by President Woodrow Wilson to analyze possible peace settlements for World War I, culminating in his book An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation (1917). This marked a series of distinct changes in his career path. Following that, Veblen worked for the United States Food Administration for a period of time. Shortly thereafter, Veblen moved to New York City to work as an editor for a magazine, The Dial. Within the next year, the magazine shifted its orientation and he lost his editorial position.

In the meantime, Veblen had made contacts with several other academics, such as Charles A. Beard, James Harvey Robinson, and John Dewey. The group of university professors and intellectuals eventually founded The New School for Social Research. Known today as The New School, in 1919 it emerged from American modernism, progressivism, and the democratic education movement. The group was open to students and aimed for a "an unbiased understanding of the existing order, its genesis, growth, and present working". From 1919 to 1926, Veblen continued to write and maintain a role in The New School's development. During this time, he wrote The Engineers and the Price System. In it, Veblen proposed a soviet of engineers. According to Yngve Ramstad, the view that engineers, not workers, would overthrow capitalism was a "novel view". Veblen invited Guido Marx to the New School to teach and to help organize a movement of engineers with others such as Morris Cooke; Henry Gantt, who had died shortly before; and Howard Scott. Cooke and Gantt were followers of Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management theory. Scott, who listed Veblen as being on the temporary organizing committee of the Technical Alliance, perhaps without consulting Veblen or other listed members, later helped found the technocracy movement.

Leisure class

In The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen writes critically of conspicuous consumption and its function in social-class consumerism and social stratification. Reflecting historically, he traces said economic behaviors back to the beginnings of the division of labor, or during tribal times. Upon the start of a division of labor, high-status individuals within the community practiced hunting and war, notably less labor-intensive and less economically productive work. Low-status individuals, on the other hand, practiced activities recognized as more economically productive and more labor-intensive, such as farming and cooking. High-status individuals, as Veblen explains, could instead afford to live their lives leisurely (hence their title as the leisure class), engaging in symbolic economic participation, rather than practical economic participation. These individuals could engage in conspicuous leisure for extended periods of time, simply following pursuits that evoked a higher social status. Rather than participating in conspicuous consumption, the leisure class lived lives of conspicuous leisure as a marker of high status. The leisure class protected and reproduced their social status and control within the tribe through, for example, their participation in war-time activities, which while they were rarely needed, still rendered their lower social class counterparts dependent upon them. During modern industrial times, Veblen described the leisure class as those exempt from industrial labor. Instead, he explains, the leisure class participated in intellectual or artistic endeavors to display their freedom from the economic need to participate in economically productive manual labor. In essence, not having to perform labor-intensive activities did not mark higher social status, but rather, higher social status meant that one would not have to perform such duties.

Veblen expanded upon Adam Smith's assessment of the rich, stating that "[t]he leisure class used charitable activities as one of the ultimate benchmarks of the highest standard of living." Veblen insinuates that the way to convince those who have money to share is to have them receive something in return. Behavioral economics also reveals that rewards and incentives are very important aspects of every-day decision making. When the rich shift their mindset from feeling as though they are forced to give their hard-earned money to feeling pride and honor from giving to charitable organizations there is benefit for every party involved. In The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Veblen referred to communities without a leisure class as "non-predatory communities," and stated that "[t]he accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale." Veblen believed that inequality was natural, and that it gave housewives something to focus their energy on. The members of the leisure class planning events and parties did not actually help anyone in the long run, according to Veblen.

Veblenian dichotomy

The Veblenian dichotomy is a concept that Veblen first suggested in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), and made fully into an analytical principle in The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904). To Veblen, institutions determine how technologies are used. Some institutions are more "ceremonial" than others. A project for Veblen's idealized economist is to identify institutions that are too wasteful and pursue institutional "adjustment" to make instituted uses of technology more "instrumental".

Veblen defines "ceremonial" as related to the past, supportive of "tribal legends" or traditional conserving attitudes and conduct; while the "instrumental" orients itself toward the technological imperative, judging value by the ability to control future consequences.

The theory suggests that, although every society depends on tools and skills to support the life process, every society also appears to have a "ceremonial" stratified structure of status that runs contrary to the needs of the "instrumental" (technological) aspects of group life. The Veblen Dichotomy is still very relevant today and can be applied to thinking around digital transformation.

Veblen proposed that engineers be a revolutionary class leading a technocratic society; the emphasis of this new society would be that of efficiency and care for the future welfare of society as opposed to the focus on social status and financial gain in a capitalist system. He called this revolutionary class of engineers the Soviet of Technicians and believed it was a solution to the leisure class's control of the means of production and the dichotomy between the ceremonial and instrumental institutions. Veblen was accused of technological determinism because of his stance on a technocratic society; however, he denied this. Veblen was more concerned with the rise of the corporations as opposed to being totally in favor of industrial advancement.

To Veblen, the engineer is guided by instrumental institutions and is influenced to develop systems and infrastructure that bring about Veblen's imagined technocracy. Veblen's work has been influential in debates about industrial planning and technocracy.

Later in life, Veblen became suspicious of technology. In his book The Instinct of Workmanship, he viewed the instinctive drive to produce better technology as a blind force that was making the world less human.

Legacy

Veblen is regarded as one of the co-founders of the American school of institutional economics, alongside John R. Commons and Wesley Clair Mitchell. Economists who adhere to this school organize themselves in the Association for Institutional Economics (AFIT). The Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) gives an annual Veblen-Commons award for work in Institutional Economics and publishes the Journal of Economic Issues. Some unaligned practitioners include theorists of the concept of "differential accumulation."

Veblen's work has remained relevant for more reasons than the phrase "conspicuous consumption." His evolutionary approach to the study of economic systems is again gaining traction and his model of recurring conflict between the existing order and new ways can be of value in understanding the new global economy. In this sense some authors have recently compared the Gilded Age, studied by Veblen, with the New Gilded Age and the contemporary processes of refeudalization, arguing for a new global leisure class and distinctive luxury consumption.

Veblen has been cited in the writings of feminist economists. Veblen refused to accept the traditional view of the role and function of women. He theorized that women in the industrial age remained victims of their "barbarian status". This has, in hindsight, made Veblen a forerunner of modern feminism.

Veblen's work has also often been cited in American literary works. He is featured in The Big Money by John Dos Passos, and mentioned in Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Sinclair Lewis' Main Street. One of Veblen's PhD students was George W. Stocking Sr., a pioneer in the emerging field of industrial organization economics. Another was Canadian academic and author Stephen Leacock, who went on to become the head of Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University in Montreal. The influence of Theory of the Leisure Class can be seen in Leacock's 1914 satire, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich.

Veblen's writings have also drawn criticism. In 1919, H. L. Mencken published The American Language, partly a critique of linguistic prescription in studies of British English, partly a defense of linguistic prescription in American English. That same year, he wrote that Veblen's works were "incomparably tangled and unintelligible," and that "in brief, he stated his hollow nothings in such high, astounding terms that inevitably arrested and blistered the right-thinking mind." Veblen "started off with a gratuitous and highly dubious assumption, proceeded to an equally dubious deduction, and then ended with a platitude which begged the whole question." In the same essay, Mencken revived his criticism of "socialist" authors, yet protested the deportation of immigrant "socialists" during the First Red Scare. At the height of Roaring Twenties conceptions of "liberal and enlightened countries", Mencken subsequently reflected on the events of 1919 as "indicative of the strength of capitalism under democracy", celebrating the divide-and-conquer results of conflict between those he previously labeled "Veblenists" and those who cited praise and protection of American English as reasons to undermine civil liberties. Mencken then articulated a premise underpinning his shifting ideas: only the "Democratic man can understand the aims and aspirations of capitalism."

Veblen goods are named for him, based on his work in The Theory of the Leisure Class.

Articles

1884. "Kant's Critique of Judgement." Journal of Speculative Philosophy.

1891. "Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism." Annals of AAPSS. JSTOR 1008995.

1892. "Bohm-Bawerk's Definition of Capital and the Source of Wages." Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE).

1892. "The Overproduction Fallacy." QJE. JSTOR 1882520.

1893. "The Food Supply and the Price of Wheat", Journal of Political Economy (JPE). JSTOR 1817524.

1894. "The Army of the Commonweal." JPE. JSTOR 1819238

1894. "The Economic Theory of Women's Dress." Popular Science Monthly.

1896. "Review of Karl Marx's 'Poverty of Philosophy'." JPE.

1897. "Review of Werner Sombart's 'Sozialismus'." JPE.

1898. "Review of Gustav Schmoller's 'Über einige Grundfragen der Sozialpolitik'." JPE.

1898. "Review of Turgot's 'Reflections'." JPE.

1898. "Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?" QJE.

1898. "The Beginnings of Ownership." American Journal of Sociology (AJS).

1898. "The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor." AJS.

1898. "The Barbarian Status of Women." AJS.

1899–1900. "The Preconceptions of Economic Science," Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. QJE.

1901. "Industrial and Pecuniary Employments." Publications of the AEA. JSTOR 2485814.

1901. "Gustav Schmoller's 'Economics'." QJE. JSTOR 1882903.

1902. "Arts and Crafts." JPE. JSTOR 1822624.

1903. "Review of Werner Sombart's 'Der moderne Kapitalismus'." JPE. JSTOR 1817297.

1903. "Review of J.A. Hobson's Imperialism", JPE. in JSTOR

1904. "An Early Experiment in Trusts", JPE. in JSTOR

1904. "Review of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations", JPE. in JSTOR

1905. "Credit and Prices", JPE. in JSTOR

1906. "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization", AJS. in JSTOR

1906. "Professor Clark's Economics", QJE. in JSTOR

1906–1907. "The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers", QJE. on marxists.org

1907. "Fisher's Capital and Income", Political Science Quarterly.

1908. "On the Nature of Capital" QJE. in JSTOR

1909. "Fisher's Rate of Interest." Political Science Quarterly.

1909. "The Limitations of Marginal Utility." JPE. in JSTOR

1910. "Christian Morals and the Competitive System", International J of Ethics. in JSTOR

1913. "The Mutation Theory and the Blond Race", Journal of Race Development. in JSTOR

1913. "The Blond Race and the Aryan Culture", Univ of Missouri Bulletin.

1915. "The Opportunity of Japan", Journal of Race Development. in JSTOR

1918. "On the General Principles of a Policy of Reconstruction", J of the National Institute of Social Sciences.

1918. "Passing of National Frontiers", Dial.

1918. "Menial Servants during the Period of War", Public.

1918. "Farm Labor for the Period of War", Public.

1918. "The War and Higher Learning", Dial.

1918. "The Modern Point of View and the New Order", Dial.

1919. "The Intellectual Pre-Eminence of Jews in Modern Europe", Political Science Quarterly. in JSTOR

1919. "On the Nature and Uses of Sabotage", Dial.

1919. "Bolshevism is a Menace to the Vested Interests", Dial.

1919. "Peace", Dial.

1919. "The Captains of Finance and the Engineers", Dial.

1919. "The Industrial System and the Captains of Industry", Dial.

1920. "Review of J.M.Keynes' Economic Consequences of the Peace, Political Science Quarterly.

1925. "Economic theory in the Calculable Future", AER.

1925. "Introduction" in The Laxdæla saga.

Thorstein Veblen

Comments

Thorstein Veblen

Comments

Thorstein Veblen across IJR

Article

Notable quotes

Article

Biography

Early life and family background

Education

Marriages

Later life

Academic career

Influences on Veblen

Institutional economics

Pecuniary emulation

Conspicuous consumption

Conspicuous leisure

Leisure class

Theory of business enterprise

Trained incapacity

Veblen's economics and politics

Political theories

Veblenian dichotomy

Publications on "The Blond Race" and "Aryan Culture"

Legacy

Selected bibliography

Published books

Articles

Notable quotes

Thorstein Veblen across IJR

Thorstein Veblen

Comments

Thorstein Veblen

Comments

Thorstein Veblen across IJR

Article

Notable quotes

Article

Biography

Early life and family background

Education

Marriages

Later life

Academic career

Influences on Veblen

Contributions to social theory

Institutional economics

Pecuniary emulation

Conspicuous consumption

Conspicuous leisure

Leisure class

Theory of business enterprise

Trained incapacity

Veblen's economics and politics

Political theories

Veblenian dichotomy

Publications on "The Blond Race" and "Aryan Culture"

Legacy

Selected bibliography

Published books

Articles

Notable quotes

Thorstein Veblen across IJR