The Theory of the Leisure Class

"It was a critique of consumerism, but it was particularly a critique of consumerism by the very wealthy. Veblen coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption”. Less well remembered is his phrase “conspicuous leisure”. Veblen saw the importance of social status as a motivator in capitalism. He was the first to understand that one of the reasons that people desperately wanted to become rich was not simply to consume but to consume in such a way that they established themselves as being superior to others. To put it another way, consumption was not solely or even primarily about fulfilling particular individual needs or ambitions, in a social context it was about establishing one’s social position relative to others. Veblen was very much an anthropologist as well as an economist. He looked back on tribal society and saw much the same thing as he saw in the Gilded Age of the last decades of the 19th century in the United States. He saw people in early tribal society establishing their social dominance through displaying power by what they had accumulated and their ability to essentially do nothing while everyone else worked. To some extent it’s a misanthropic view, but it’s also a satirical view. Veblen was a great humorist. In fact, he wrote with his tongue firmly in his cheek, pointing out the foibles of the Gilded Age. I like Veblen as a stylist. I also like the fact that he combines anthropology and sociology with economic observation. He views the accumulation of wealth as a social act, rather than as a mere personal, familial objective. Veblen writing in 1899 was, of course, a precursor to the reforms that Herbert Croly and others had called for in the early years of the 20th century. And yet America today bears a striking resemblance to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. Read Veblen today and you can almost see contemporary America."