Thorstein Veblen - The Theory of the Leisure Class

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS

THORSTEIN VEBLEN was born in 1857 on the Wisconsin frontier, the sixth of twelve children of Thomas and Kari Veblen who emigrated from Norway in 1847. At 17 Veblen was sent away from the family farm to Carleton College Academy, where he received his BA in 1880. In the following years Veblen followed a largely unstructured life that included an early marriage, retirement to his wifes family farm, and on-and-off studies at Johns Hopkins, Yale, and Cornell, before he picked up two doctoral degreesone in philosophy, the other in economics. He was 35 when he procured his first academic post in 1892 at the newly established University of Chicago. Although he had a reputation as an indifferent lecturer, a difficult colleague, and a bit of a womanizer, he gained recognition as a man with important new things to say about the relation of ever-evolving cultural forces to current business transactions. Culled from the series of papers he presented throughout the 1890s before academic audiences, The Theory of the Leisure Class was published in 1899. Received with derision by those who clung to old-style formulas of economic stability, it piqued the interest of members in the growing fields of sociology, anthropology, and psychology, as well as the novelists rising in protest against growing social inequities. Veblen went on to write ten books and countless reviews and essays, to be dismissed from the University of Chicago and Stanford University by administrators embarrassed over his romantic life, to remarry after his first wife divorced him, and to venture into non-academic areas in efforts to support himself. Finally, unemployable and in failing health, he retired to a cabin in the California mountains where he died in 1929.

MARTHA BANTA is Professor Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles. The author of six books and numerous essays on American literature and cultural studies, she is the recipient of lifetime achievement awards from the Modern Language Association and the American Studies Association. One True Theory & the Quest for an American Aesthetic, her forthcoming book, treats in depth Veblens role as the champion of new modes of scientific inquiry that influenced many areas of social thought.

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THORSTEIN VEBLEN

The Theory of the Leisure Class

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
MARTHA BANTA

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Veblen, Thorstein, 18571929
The theory of the leisure class / Thorstein Veblen; edited with an
Introduction and notes by Martha Banta.
p. cm. (Oxford worlds classics)
Originally published: New York : Macmillan, 1899.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 9780192806840 (alk. paper)
1. Leisure class. I. Title.
HB831.V4 2007
305.5201dc22
2007008544

Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
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ISBN 9780192806840

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Everyone appears to acknowledge the importance of The Theory of the Leisure Class, for has not Veblens 1899 analysis of the socioeconomics of affluent American societies introduced into the vernacular provocative terms such as conspicuous consumption still operative in a world that embraces the notion that greed is good and celebrates the Donald Trumps and the Paris Hiltons who clutter our pecuniary culture? The question remains how well Veblens study is really knownboth for what it represents within the range of his own long career and in the newly defined disciplines he guided into the modern world that have had a major impact upon our understanding of the relations between business, industry, and social mores.

When Maxwell Anderson, the well-known playwright, was asked if he had read Veblens book, he replied Why no. why should I? All my friends have read it. It permeates the atmosphere in which I live. The Theory of the Leisure Class is indeed a pivotal work. It followed after Veblens early essays promoting post-Darwinian methods of scientific inquiry that replaced outmoded views of an unchanging universe with theories capable of deciphering ever-evolving societies and institutions. It began his championing of the heroic model of the engineer whose selfless concern for the production of essential goods countered the depredations of the predatory businessman solely interested in profits gained through selling useless products. What may still matter most is that it represents a major literary achievement, a work that rearranges how we look at our social structures and everyday behaviours. Besides being a very good read, its narrative techniques, its stylistic innovations, its sheer guts raise