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Lesson 10Thorstein Veblen

Robert Wonser

SOC 368 – Classical Sociological Theory

Spring 2014

22Lesson 10: Thorstein Veblen, Classical Sociological Theory

Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen was born on July 30, 1857 in rural Wisconsin

6th of 12 children, son of Norwegian immigrantsPhD from Yale in 1884 where he studied under

William Graham SumnerUnable to receive university position because he

was agnostic, lack of professional reputation and his lack of polish as an immigrant.

1899 – Theory of the Leisure Class

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Biography

University of Chicago in 1892 but his days there were numbered:

Crumbling marriageOffended Victorian sentiments with

numerous affairs.1906 – Stanford University where he was

a boring teacher and dressed like a tramp.Womanizer.

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Veblen was an odd guy…

Lived very frugally.Didn’t contribute much to conversations..

For hours.Died on August 3, 1929… just before the

Great Depression began which he anticipated in Absentee Ownership: Business Enterprise in Recent Times

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Influences

Karl MarxEvolutionary thinkers like: Charles Darwin,

Herbert Spencer, William Graham SumnerEconomists: Adam Smith, Alfred MarshallBasically, evolutionary theory + Marx + Economics =

Veblen

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Relation to Marxian Theory

Essentially operates under the assumption of two social classes (business and industrial) like Marx.

Not based on ownership of means of production but instead on the amount of wealth an whether or not control over others is exercised.

Business class “own[s] wealth invested in large holdings… and thereby control[s] the conditions of life for the rest”

Industrial class does “not own wealth in sufficiently large holdings, and [its] conditions of life are thereby controlled by others.”

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Business and Industrial Classes

Difference between those who live on free income (unearned) and those who live by work.

“Between those who control the conditions of work and the rate of output and to whom the net output of industry goes as free income, on the one hand, and those who have work to do and to whom a livelihood is allowed by these persons in control, on the other hand”

“between the kept classes and the underlying community from which their keep is drawn”

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Veblen ≠a Marxist

Criticizes Marx for buying into doctrine of natural rights (laborer’s right to products of their labor), being Hegelian, adopting synthesis model of change not an evolutionary one (Darwinism > Hegelianism), outmoded psychological assumptions, saying nothing about the future society, etc.

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Evolutionary Theory

Believed in survival of the fittest and the least fit perishing.

Evolutionary perspective allowed him to emphasize social institutions’ change and development.

Selective adaptation that is at the core of evolutionary theory is never totally successful.

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Institutions

Created from the past but continue to exist in the present (having survived selective adaptation) but aren’t fully in tune with the present. They can never catch up to the changing circumstances.

“institutions of to-day—the present accepted scheme of life—do not entirely fit the situation of to-day.”

Inertia keeps them going anyway

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Institutions

Not fitting quite right leads them to want to be modified but the leisure class are sheltered from everyday realities, like financial issues, so their life is more able to attune to past realities.

Such groups, especially when looked up to buy lower status groups, are likely to be conservative forces that retard social progress and attempts to bring up to date institutions.

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Two-Stage Evolution

Savage society characterized by peace and cooperation (as opposed to Hobbes’ view of savagery)

Barbarism viewed negatively as warlike and competitive. Individual achievement emphasized rather than collective good. Shit to self-interest privileging industrial arts to gain at others’ expense.

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Evolution

In a savage society Workmanship as basis of industry predatory barbarism society based on property relations, moneyed interests and control industry.

Product of the times (Spencerian evolution, Social Darwinism, racism, etc.)“lower ethnic elements”

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Economic Theory

Veblen rejected economics of the time (Smith’s making facts fit his preconceptions, “self-balanced mechanism”) for an evolutionary one (institutional adaptations).

Highly critical of marginal utility approach (said nothing of consumption and ignored culture and institutions).

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Human Nature

Veblen’s theory is based on certain assumptions of human nature, especially instincts (“the innate and persistent propensities of human nature”)

Instinct of workmanship involves the efficient use of available means and adequate management of available resources (“technological mastery of facts”)

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Human Nature

Parental bent is “an unselfish solicitude for the well-being of the incoming generation—a bias for the highest efficiency and fullest volume of life in the group”

Idle curiosity people want to know things when more important issues aren’t occurring.

Emulation “Among these abiding dispositions are a strong bent to admire and defer to persons of achievement and distinction, as well as a workmanlike disposition to find merit in any work that serves the common good.”

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The Industrial Arts

Or technical knowledge is “ a common stock, held collectively by the community, which is in this relation to be conceived as a going concern”

Genesis is micro-macro. Ongoing and inherited.

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Cultural Lag

Principle which govern knowledge and belief, law and morals, lag behind the forward drive in industry and the contemporary workday conditions.

Superstitions give way to matter-of-fact, scientific ways of thinking eventually.

Industrial arts’ expansion, change of ownership, with the personal employer-owner being replaced with impersonal corporate capital.

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Cultural Lag

Also at this time, those who come to possess capital are disconnected knowledge of how industrial arts work.

Capital becomes a barrier to industrial arts and their development.

Ownership lags behind changes in the industrial arts and come to impede their further development.

“twentieth century technology has outgrown the eighteenth-century system of vested rights”

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Theory of the Leisure Class

Activities fall into one of two classes of activity: industry or drudgery, the “effort that goes to create a new thing, with a new purpose given it by the fashioning hand of its maker out of the passive (brute) material. Exploit results in useful outcome for the agent, “the conversion to his own ends of energies previously directed to some other end by some other agent”

Invidious distinction is where exploit is seen as noble and industry is unworthy, debasing.

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Invidious comparisons between people made on the basis of efficiency at work, leads to making efficiency visible to others emulation by others. In barbarian societies this leads to esteem, in a predatory societies this leads to demonstration of prowess and aggression, booty and trophies.

Wealth used to be seen as evidence of efficiency, instinct of workmanship, later possession of wealth itself comes to be seen as meritorious.

Instinct of workmanship an effort to outdo others in terms of possession of the symbols of economic achievement.

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Conspicuous Leisure

division of labor was due to the barbarian culture of conquest, domination, and exploitation, the conquerors assigned the labor-intensive jobs to the vanquished people, and, for themselves, assumed the military profession, and other less labor-intensive work. Thus they became the elementary leisure class.

Conspicuous leisure then is when the leisure class demonstrates its wealth (and gains esteem) by leading a life of leisure, by not working.

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Conspicuous Leisure

Employs servants who, because they also produce nothing, also serve to demonstrate wasted time and the master’s ability to afford to pay people to waste time.

Knowledge of dead languages, arts, etc. Why? Because it lacks utility; because they can.

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Conspicuous consumption

As society evolves, conspicuous consumption tends to replace conspicuous leisure.

Practical way to impress lots of people (and strangers) is with abundantly obvious indicator’s of one’s ability to waste money.

Consumer goods more obvious than leisure activities.

Both involve waste (one of time, the other of money).

Lower classes emulate the classes above them.

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The Invention of class cultures

150 years ago Americans enjoyed the same national popular culture consumed and experienced collectively by the masses, by people from all social classes.What happened? Industrial Revolution

Created a new upper-classes American elite of successful entrepreneurs, bankers and businesspeople.

The nouveau riche descended from common backgrounds, not aristocracy like in Europe.

So initially they drew on trappings of European nobility (family crests, French cuisine, classical art and music)

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The Invention of Class Cultures

They sought to create distinctions between themselves and everyone else

Conscious efforts at boundary maintenance and social exclusion.

Including “serious” culture for upper classes (classical music, opera etc.)

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Class Status and Conspicuous Consumption

Conspicuous consumption status displays that show off one’s wealth through the flagrant consumption of goods and services, particularly those considered wasteful or otherwise lacking in obvious utility

Upper classes distinctly avoid associations with working class; this reverse is not true.

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Examples of Conspicuous Consumption

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Characteristics of the Leisure Class

The subjugation of women: Because women once were war booty won by raiding barbarians, in contemporary society, the housewife is the trophy who attests to a man's socio-economic success. In disallowing his wife to have a discrete, independent socio-economic life—such as a profession, a trade, a job—a man can display her unemployed status as a form of his conspicuous leisure and as an object of his conspicuous consumption.

The popularity of sport: In the case of American football, although its practice could be socially advantageous to the psychological cohesion of the community, it is an economic side-effect, because it is a display of conspicuous leisure.

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Characteristics of the Leisure Class

Supernatural worship: Religion is a tribal expression of conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, of social, but not economic, consequence. Hence, a church building is an economic waste of land and resources, whilst the clergy are people employed in unproductive "work".

Social formalities: Contemporary manners and etiquette are remnant formal practices of the social strata of barbarian society, of little practical, economic value, but much cultural value in identifying, establishing, and enforcing distinctions of place within a social stratum; a place for everyone, and everyone in his and her place.

Propensity to fight, duel, be patriotic.Gambling. Because it is a “hindrance to the highest

industrial efficiency”

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Business vs Industry

“The material interest of the underlying population [largely those associated with industry] is best served by maximum output at a low cost, while business interests of the industry’s owners [“business’] may be best served by a moderate output at an enhanced price.”

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Business and Industry

Business leaders are concerned with financial matters, according to Veblen, they are not earning their incomes because they contribute nothing to industry (they’re parasitic and exploitative).“captains of industry” = absentee ownerships; Saboteurs

Industry has to do with apprehension and coordination of mechanical facts and utilization for the purposes of human life; associated with workmanship and production (usually held by working classes).

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Free income and Trained Incapacity

Free income is that “income for which no equivalent in useful work is given”

Unearned moneyHurt the whole community in what is NOT

being produced insteadTrained incapacity is where the focus on

money comes at the cost of effective operation of industry.

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Politics

Political leaders are tools of the “vested interests” and the “captains of industry”

National government protects the business interests.

“the quest for profit leads to a predatory national policy.”

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Criticisms

Too pessimistic?Criticism of contemporary society without

blueprint for a better alternative.Adoption of outmoded evolutionary perspective.Lack of clarityConcealing true motivations (often behind irony).Humorous (which alienated ‘serious’ readers).Technological determinism (industrial arts

dominated by technology)Technical elitism (soviet of engineers)