Sidney Plotkin - Veblens America: The Conspicuous Case of Donald J. Trump

Veblens America

The Conspicuous Case of Donald J. Trump

Sidney Plotkin

Anthem Press

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This edition first published in UK and USA 2018

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Sidney Plotkin 2018

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-872-0 (Hbk)

ISBN-10: 1-78308-872-9 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.

This is a study that I never imagined I might write. It was certainly nowhere on my scholarly agenda. The coupling of Donald J. Trump and Thorstein Bunde Veblen did not present itself to me in any abstract way, history did. It began unexpectedly to take root in my mind in 2016. I was in the final stages of editing a collection of essays for Anthem on Veblens social theory. One of the volumes anonymous reviewers was complimentary of the authors contributions, but added a note of surprise and disappointment that little in the collection spoke to Veblens sense of the American case. Indeed notthe authors preoccupations were mainly with Veblens social theory, its methods and underpinnings, not with his observations about specific national instances. I made this point in reply and added another. In light of the suddenly strident political success of Donald Trump, I suggested that invoking Veblens thoughts on the United States might be an intriguing way both to explore the Trump phenomenon as well as to underscore Veblens continuing relevance to an understanding of the contemporary world. What I did not express in that reply was my gnawing perplexity at this disturbing shift in the tenor and thrust of American politics nor my uncertainty about how well Veblen might actually help to clarify matters. With the encouragement of Anthems Tej P. S. Sood to follow this lead, I began working anew through Veblens treatment of the American case, particularly its linkages to Veblens earliest observations about barbarism in The Theory of the Leisure Class. As I proceeded to unravel his idea of the barbaric stand in American liberalism, and to familiarize myself with Trumps life, the project became more and more imaginable and worthwhile. Readers, of course, will make their own judgments of its value. As for me, the experience of peering through Veblen to find the barbaric image of Donald Trump staring back at me proved to be among the most intellectually rewarding and harrowing of my writing life.

The resulting work is drawn from widely available, mainly journalistic sources on Trump, including the various biographies. Most of the writing was completed in January 2018. And though I have had some opportunities to update certain key developments, the main emphasis here is less on Trumps presidency than on Veblens aid in explaining the life and institutional forces that led to that presidency. My goal has not been to provide new data or evidence but to enrich understanding of Trump by showing how his lineage, behavior, values and business career are understandable within, although not necessarily exclusively, with the help of Veblens theoretical frame. The years ahead will find scholars from many fields and disciplines adding much to the academic study of Trump and Trumpism. The present work is but a first stab at making theoretical sense of Trump and what he represents. But it is just as much an attempt to highlight the power of Veblens insight into the barbaric forces at work in American development. Naturally, any errors of fact and judgment fall exclusively within my responsibility, and I offer the usual authorial apologies for any and all of these.

The time and freedom to do this work did not spontaneously appear. I want very much to express my gratitude to Vassar College and to my colleagues in the Department of Political Science for permitting me to take an early sabbatical leave in order to develop and complete this work. Without that generous contribution, this study could not have been undertaken. Special gratitude as well to Bill Scheuerman, Russ Bartley and Rick Tilman for their insightful readings and comments on early chapter drafts as well as to Anthems anonymous readers for their helpful and supportive notes. My deepest gratitude, however, goes to my wife, Aura, for her gifts of love and friendship, and for her ability to sense before I did that Donald Trumps candidacy was not to be taken lightly. Indeed, it is to her that this work is lovingly dedicated.

To avoid needless repetition, Thorstein Veblens writings are cited throughout with abbreviations. Full citations, with abbreviations in parentheses, including date of original publication, are included below:

The Theory of the Leisure Class, introduction by Robert Lekachman (New York: Penguin Books, 1979) (TLC, 1899).

The Theory of Business Enterprise, with a new introduction by Douglas Dowd (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1978) (TBE, 1904).

The Instinct of Workmanship and theStateof the Industrial Arts, with a new introduction by Murray G. Murphey (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990) (IOW, 1914).

Imperial Germany and the IndustrialRevolution, with an introduction by Joseph Dorfman (New York: Viking Press, 1954) (IG, 1915).

An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation (New York: August M. Kelley, 1964) (NOP, 1917).

The Engineers and the PriceSystem, introduction by Daniel Bell (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction 1983) (EPS, 1921).

The Vested Interests and the CommonMan (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1964) (VICM, 1919).

The Higher Learning in America, with a new introduction by Ivar Berg (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1993) (THL, 1918).

Absentee Ownership: Business Enterprise inRecentTimes; The Case of America, with a new introduction by Marion J. Levy Jr. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1997) (AO, 1923).

Veblens essays and reviews appear in three collections. These are cited by title in the notes with abbreviations for the collections in which they appear:

The Place of Science inModernCivilization (New York: Capricorn Books, 1969). The Capricorn edition was entitled Veblen on Marx, Race, Science and Economics. Citations are from this edition, but are noted in the text as (PSC, 1919).

Economics in Our Changing Order, ed. Leon Ardzrooni (New York: Augustus Kelley, 1964) (ECO, 1934).

Essays, Reviews and Reports: Previously Uncollected Writings, edited with a new introduction by Joseph Dorfman (Clifton, NJ: Augustus M. Kelley, 1973) (ERR, 1973).