Veblen

Thorstein Veblen

An Introduction to Thorstein Veblen

Academic and unemployed

Veblen began his academic career as a philosophy major, focusing on economics as his minor study. He attended Carleton College, Johns Hopkins University, then completed a doctorate in philosophy at Yale (1884). After completing his doctorate, Veblen retreated to Minnesota for six or seven years. There he wrote, read, and occasionally worked, but was otherwise intellectually isolated from the rest of the world. During this period, Veblen became detached from "conventional viewpoints" (Horowitz 2002, 42) and from American mainstream society, allowing him the ability to observe the American economic system as an outsider, looking in.

Veblen entered Cornell as a graduate student in 1891. Veblen wrote his first real economics paper there, in which he analyzed "Some Neglected Points" of socialist theory. (Horowitz 2002, 43) This paper attracted the attention of Professor J. Laurence Laughlin. Laughlin, while at Cornell, was asked to head the newly formed Economics department at the University of Chicago. Laughlin decided to bring Veblen along with, providing him with his first of few jobs in formal academia.

Veblen published his most famous essay, The Theory Of The Leisure Class (1899) , while in Chicago. He left Chicago for Stanford in 1906. Effectively fired Stanford - for 'amoral' behavior - soon after arriving, he held his last formal academic position at the University of Missouri from 1911-1918. Veblen moved to New York and helped found The New School. He published a number of books and papers while in New York, but died in relative anonymity in 1929.

Economic thought - a primer

• He saw “systems as volitional rather than deterministic in character, formed by human beings rather than by actors playing out preordained scripts.” (ix, Horowitz) o The closest 20th century America came to producing a “freewheeling intellectual” -ix, Horowitz) o not defined by a specific college or university or system or departmental orthodoxy o “For all his faith in socialism as a system, it was individualism that clearly made him stand apart as a man.” (-ix, horowitz)

Veblen as a Marxist / offering an updated Marxism

Arthur K. Davis • Given a broad conception of Marxism, “many if not most of Veblen’s apparent departures from Marxism (such as his criticism of Marx’s overemphasis on rational class conciousness in history) become either corrections of particular Marxian propositions or original contributions to that tradition.” -282, Radicals • Veblen’s ‘conspicuous consumption,’ Davis argues, was “a point Marx mentions but nowhere develops.” -282, Radicals • “The biographical evidence is overwhelming that Veblen became permanently and intensely interested in Marxism early in his career.” -282, Radicals • “The Marxian concept of change tended to overemphasize the rational change stemming from class-concious interest. Veblen’s correction of Marx on this point is one of his more important contributions to the Marxian tradition.” -283, Radicals

E.K. Hunt • “While Veblen cannot properly be considered a disciple of Marx, the parallels between the two great thinkers are striking.” 325, hunt’s book o “insisted on a historical approach to the study of capitalism; both saw capitalism as a historically unique and historically transient society based on the exploitation of the direct producers by a numerically small ruling class of parasitic owners.” 325, hunt’s book

Harvey Goldberg • “The core of Veblen's social theory is largely Marxian.” 280

Veblen's departure from Marxism / as a critic

John Patrick Diggins • “Half a century separated Marx from Veblen. Thus when Marx studied the ideas and theoretical assumptions of capitalism, his economic analysis took its point of departure from the modern natural rights traditions... When Veblen studied economics toward the end of the nineteenth century, the discipline was in a state of ferment and confusion.” 43, Diggins • “A chief source of controversy was the theory of labor expounded by Marx himelf. “ -43, Diggins • Veblen on marx -45, Diggins

Michael G. Smith • “Marx, Technocracy and the Corporatist Ethos,” pp. 235

Joseph Dorfman (1934) • pp. 243, 264-268 -- strong on biographical information • Lends context to how Darwinian evolution factored into Veblen's economic thought. Discusses how this watershed in social sciences places Veblen and Marx's most basic ideologies at "irreconcilable" odds.

References

THORSTEIN VEBLEN: THEORIST OF THE LEISURE CLASS • John Patrick Diggins o 1999 o pages 42-51 • German “historicism,” pragmatism, Darwinism (specifically the evolutionary side), and Marxism – identified as the primary basis of Veblen’s economic ideas.

AMERICAN RADICALS: SOME PROBLEMS AND PERSONALITIES • Edited: Harvey Goldberg • 1957 • Section by Arthur K. Davis • Chapter 15, pp. 279-293

THORSTEIN VEBLEN AND HIS AMERICA • Joseph Dorfman o 1934 o pp. 240-286 • pre-Darwinian character of Marxism, directly contrasts with Veblen’s post-Darwinism. (pp. 243, 264-268) • offers extensive biographical history of Veblen and his intellectual development, but does not help in identifying the strongest of these precedents in his economic theories.

THORSTEIN VEBLEN AND HIS CRITICS: 1891-1963 • Rick Tilman • 1991 • Outline criticism of Veblen from conservatives to radicals and devotes two chapters discussing ideological use/abuse of Veblen’s work throughout more recent economic thought.

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE • E.K. Hunt, 1979 • “His analysis, like Marx’s, was historically oriented in every aspect.” (300) • “Human history was, for Veblen, the history of the evolution of social institutions.” (301) • “In many of his writings Veblen referred to these common patterns of human behavior as ‘instincts’ “. (301) • “ ‘In economic life, as in other lines of human conduct, habitual modes of activity and relations have grown up and have by convention settled into a fabric of institutions. These institutions...have a prescriptive, habitual force of their own.’ “ 301 --[Veblen, “Fisher’s Rate of Interest,” in Essays in Our Changing Order]

VEBLEN’S CENTURY • Irving Louis Horowitz, ed. , 2002 • Intro is of value, highlights importance of Veblen and lends interesting insight into his character.

Marx and Veblen on Human Nature, History, and Capitalism: Vive la Difference! • 1993, Stephen Edgell and Jules Townshend • http://www.jstor.org/stable/4226715

Marx, Technocracy and the Corporatist Ethos • 1988, Michael G. Smith • http://www.jstor.org/stable/20100377 • ”Ultimately, Marx sought to achieve efficient order in society by way of democratization of both the workplace and technical knowledge. Veblen wanted to make a better product; Marx a better man.” -235

Varieties of Capitalism from the Perspectives of Veblen and Marx • 1995, Geoffrey M. Hodgson • http://www.jstor.org/stable/4226972

Veblen, Weber and Marx on Political Economy • 1993, Michael W. Hughey and Arthur J. Vidich • http://www.jstor.org/stable/20007108

Intellectual Antecedents of Thorstein Veblen: A Reappraisal • Edgell and Tilman, 1989 • http://www.jstor.org/stable/4226207 • “To date, there is no adequate comprehensive assessment of Veblen’s primary intellectual antecedents. Consequently, the purpose of this article paper is to establish the main parameters of such an endeavor.” pp. 1004

Varieties of capitalism and varieties of economic theory • G.M. Hodgson, 1996 • http://www.jstor.org/stable/4224780 • Refer to Hodgson 1995 work for a more extensive discussion. This, however, is a more concise and updated version of Hudson’s arguments.

The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and his Followers • 1906, Thorstein Veblen • http://www.jstor.org/stable/1882722