-unique in American social theory
-satire of pretentious wealthy people
-Mark Twain satirized the "Guilded Age"
-compares wealthy people to predators
-became popular reading among the wealthy
-the satire and irony are difficult to ignore
-very private person
-Thorstein Veblen died in 1929
-Dorfman, not a very accurate account of Veblen's life
-Riesman, character assassination
-accounts of his youth, unreliable
-his parents were Norweigian immigrants
-started a successful farm in Minnesota
-attended an austere Lutheran Church
-went to Carlton College
-went to John Hopkins, later Yale
-Sumner, laissez faire conservative
-Ph.D in philosophy from Yale
-couldn't find a university teaching position because professorships usually went to retired ministers
-became engaged to the niece of Carlton College's president
-his wife had a nervous breakdown after working as a high school teacher
-discussed utopian Socialist, Looking Backward
-decided to study economics
-secured a special academic fellowship
-Junior faculty member at the University of Chicago
-significant social/scientific work
-worked for the Department of Agriculture
-hated pretentious attire and luxurious living environments
-he lived in a shack and in a basement
-quiet speaker
-students should be self-motivated in their attempts at learning
-didn't want to be an "agent" of coercion for the u. administration
-discouraged students from taking exams
-had an affair, looked down upon
-cheap cremation, no tombstone, no monument,no obituary, no biography.
-two classes: the "predatory class" and the "industrious class"
-Minnesota/Wisconsin immigrants had lost their family farms through fraud and economic manipulations
-distrust for bankers and land speculators
-moral uprightness: work with one's hands, live off one's physical labor
-self sufficient labor vs. robber barons
-trusts, monopolies, large estates, flaunting of wealth, and manipulative mass advertising, professional business managers
-wealth didn't go to workers, inventors, or engineers but to speculators, middleman, brokers
-agrarian populism,trade-union labor movements, socialist movements-met with opposition from the police ("goon squads")
-universities became dominated by business
-worried about nationalism and patriotism
-wealth without labor is injurious to society
-difficult to trace his intellectual roots
-influences: Kant, Peirce, Dewey, William James, Sombart, Darwin, Kropotkin, Loeb, Morgan, Tylor, Comte, Spencer, Sumner, Bellamy, Marx.
-Kant was concerned with peace on a scholarly level
-humans interpret the world by habits of the mind
-idle curiosity led to scientific breakthroughs
-historical development of economic institutions > abstract mathematical models
-Darwin, world is a series of changes in the environment
-cooperation is more important than competition/conflict in the long term of society
p.358
-change: from an evolutionary development in society
-savagery: simple and peaceful
-barbarianism: conquest driven
-civilization: peaceful/economically developed
-similar approach to Comte: animistic, pragmatic, matter-of-fact
-wife questioned her wealthy Republican background and became a socialist
-capitalist production is wasteful
Habit
1) without rational reflection
2) appear to be common-sense
3.) resistant to change
habits of the mind> form cultural norms
-society: sum of institutions
SAVAGE: self sufficient, hunting, gathering.
-isolated, stable
-division of labor between men and women
-cooperative labor
-deities were nurturing
-men became the predatory class
BARBARIAN:
-accumulation of wealth by a predatory class
--hierarchy, conservative, war-oriented, religion-dominated
-the bulk of the population: subsistence level
CIVILIZATION:
-handicraft
-highly developed technology
-heavy division of labor
-predatory class-business class: members do not produce anything of benefit for society on the whole, just create as much personal wealth as possible.
-capitalist class: beneficiary of everybody else's work
humans behave how institutions/norms tell them to behave
-instinctual drives cause individuals to do certain activities
-a) instinct of workmanship: mold the world creatively through productive labor
b) instinct of parenting: concern for the community and well-being of others, altruistic behavior
c) instinct of idle curiosity: development of systematic knowledge
-The Higher Learning in America, depended faculty with an independent bent
-humans developed instinctual drives to care for others
-evolution of habits
-new economic coordinators (not competitive capitalists) would come in.
-material assumptions are useful
-symbolically communicate status to others to maintain privilege
-"conspicious consumption," "conspicuous waste," and the "leisure class"
-clothes that cannot be worn for labor signify high status
-mansion, expensive pets, high-priced fashion
-fashion is a non-productive use of time, thus it connotes status.
-men dominate women
-men add less to the collective well-being
-men remove women from productive labor for status
-frail women: incapable of hard work, high status
-men removed women from visible labor at least> created job discrimination
-women wanted equal employment and the end to exploitative domination
-Germany: advanced technology + dynastic government> military aggression
-predatory capitalism, from 1700s entrepreneurialism
-economic collapse because controllers would not have technical skills
-business controllers would not understand the technology behind the process
-Capitalism would continue because
1) mass advertising, politicians owned by capitalists
2) the popular habits of mind in USA, business is good, domination by business is natural.
3) the docility of engineers and technicians employed by businesses
-engineers would eventually assert themselves
-didn't believe in historic inevitability
-The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
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