The Theory of the Leisure ClassTransaction Publishers, 1912 - 261 pagina's In Veblen's first and best-known work, he challenges some of society's most cherished standards of behavior and with devastating wit and satire exposes the hollowness of many of our canons of taste, education, dress, and culture. Veblen uses the leisure class as his example because it is this class that sets the standards followed by every level of society. |
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adaptation æsthetic animistic appreciable aptitudes archaic barbarian beauty canons of reputability character chiefly commonly conservatism conservative conspicuous consumption conspicuous leisure conspicuous waste consumer degree devout observances direction divinity dominant dress economic effect efficiency effort element employments emulation especially everyday evidence exemption expenditure expensive expression fact force gentleman of leisure ground habit of mind habits of thought hand higher honorific human nature ideal imputed individual industrial community industrial process instinct of workmanship institutions labor learning leisure class leisure-class scheme less matter men's ment methods modern industrial motive munity niary nomic non-invidious ownership peaceable pecuniary culture pecuniary reputability persons phase point of view population predaceous predatory culture present priestly productive propensity purpose quasi-peaceable regards relation respect selective sense servants serve social spiritual stage standard status sumption survival tabu temperament theory Thorstein Veblen tion tive traits true usage utility Veblen vicarious leisure vogue wealth women
Populaire passages
Pagina 86 - Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes.
Pagina 64 - Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. ; As wealth accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail to sufficiently put his opulence in evidence by this method. The aid of friends and competitors is therefore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable presents and expensive feasts and entertain^ ments.
Pagina 35 - The motive that lies at the root of ownership is emulation ; and the same motive of emulation continues active in the further development of the institution to which it has given rise and in the development of all those features of the social structure which this institution of ownership touches. The possession of wealth confers honour ; it is an invidious distinction. Nothing equally cogent can be said for the consumption of goods, nor for any other conceivable incentive to acquisition, and especially...
Pagina 121 - The corset is, in economic theory, substantially a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work.
Pagina 70 - ... all customary conspicuous consumption. The last items of this category of consumption are not given up except under stress of the direst necessity. Very much of squalor and discomfort will be endured before the last trinket or the last pretense of pecuniary decency is put away.
Pagina 35 - The possession of wealth confers honour ; it is an invidious distinction. Nothing equally cogent can be said for the consumption of goods, nor for any other conceivable incentive to acquisition, and especially not for any incentive to the accumulation of wealth. It is of course not to be overlooked that in a community where nearly all goods are private property the necessity of earning a livelihood is a powerful and everpresent incentive for the poorer members of the community.
Pagina 98 - ... reputability, it comes about that a beautiful article which is not expensive is accounted not beautiful. In this way it has happened, for instance, that some beautiful flowers pass conventionally .for offensive weeds ; others that can be cultivated with relative ease are accepted and admired by the lower middle class, who can afford no more expensive luxuries of this kind ; but these varieties are rejected as vulgar by those people who are better able to pay for expensive flowers and who are...
Pagina 62 - ... are obtainable at a very low cost. From archaic times down through all the length of the patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. Drunkenness and the other pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford...
Pagina 36 - ... early as an element of the utility of the things possessed, though this was not at the outset the chief element of their value. The man's prowess was still primarily the group's prowess, and the possessor of the booty felt himself to be primarily the keeper of the honour of his group.