Thorstein Veblen

For more information on Thorstein Bunde Veblen, visit Britannica.com.

The American political economist, sociologist, and social critic Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929) wrote about the evolutionary development and mounting internal tensions of modern Western society.

Thorstein Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, in Valders, Wis. He was the sixth of 12 children of Norwegian immigrant parents. Veblen graduated in 1880 from Carleton College, Minn., and in 1884 he took his doctorate in philosophy at Yale. He was a brilliant student, yet failed to get an academic post - apparently because of his "Norski" background and his skepticism of established institutions. For seven years Veblen read books on the farm in Minnesota, tinkered with farm machinery, and took part in village discussions. In 1888 he married Ellen Rolfe.

In 1891 Veblen revived his academic career by enrolling as a graduate student in economics at Cornell. A year later he moved to the University of Chicago, where he stayed for 14 years. Despite numerous papers and book reviews in learned journals, Veblen's academic advancement on the Chicago faculty was slow. His first and best-known book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), was followed by The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904).

Although he produced eight volumes between 1914 and 1923, Veblen's academic fortune did not prosper. In 1906 he had moved from Chicago to Stanford University for 3 years. His teaching performance was always considered poor: he mumbled inaudibly and consistently flouted the grading system by giving his students "Cs." His domestic difficulties and associations with other women complicated his situation, according to university administrators. Forced to resign from Stanford, Veblen remained without a post for two years. Then, in 1911, he was appointed lecturer at the University of Missouri, where he remained for seven years. He remarried in 1914.

After a short period of government service in World War I, Veblen wrote editorials and essays for magazines and gave occasional lectures at the New School for Social Research. In 1926 he retired to his California shack, "a defeated man, " in the words of his biographer Joseph Dorfman. He died in poverty in Menlo Park on Aug. 3, 1929.

Veblen's Leading Ideas

Veblen made his readers aware that, in his period, American small-scale competitive capitalism was giving way to large-scale monopoly trusts. Among the implications of this trend were: the monopolistic practice of administered prices - charging what the traffic would bear; the limitation on production in order to raise prices and maximize profits; the subordination of the national state and of universities to the role of agents for business; and the emergence of a leisure class devoted to wasteful and conspicuous consumption for the sake of status.

Veblen also rejected the prevailing late-19th-century social philosophy of the "survival of the fittest." Instead, he adopted a perspective of impersonal institutional change and conflict which owed much to Charles Darwin and even more to Karl Marx. Another major influence on Veblen was the utopian socialism of Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888). Yet Veblen was never a social activist or even an open advocate of social reform. He remained for the most part an academic observer and analyst. Implicitly, however, some of his writings were severely critical of the existing social order, with overtones of agrarian populism and utopian socialism. A number of Veblen's basic concepts and insights have become widely accepted in American sociological analysis: these include the "sense of workmanship, " "culture lag, " "conspicuous consumption, " and "waste."

Leisure Class

In his Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) Veblen analyzed the status symbolism of modern bourgeois consumption, with interesting historical and anthropological antecedents. Social prestige, he pointed out, is enhanced by wasteful consumption of time and goods. With few changes, this book remains an excellent source work for many present-day social and liberating movements.

On modern America and its economy, two of Veblen's best books are The Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) and Absentee Ownership (1923). These works trace the inherent conflict between profit-oriented capitalists and the general welfare - defined by Veblen as maximum productivity of goods and services. The Higher Learning in America (1918), a biting analysis of the consequences of business domination of universities, should be read even today by those interested in contemporary issues and conflicts on North American campuses.

Veblen's Imperial Germany (1915) and The Nature of Peace (1917) are still relevant. His posthumously published Essays on Our Changing Order (1934) throws more light on the cold war than do most interpretations.

Veblen's Legacy

Though he left no disciples, Veblen influenced economists of varied views, political scientists, public administrators and policy makers in Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal era, and a minor but significant social movement - technocracy. Originating in the early 1920s, technocracy identified the general welfare with maximum engineering productivity. But Veblen's organizational connection with technocracy was temporary and superficial.

Even his most orthodox contemporaries rated Veblen as one of the few really outstanding American social scientists. After his death his stature grew steadily, for his insights have proved both lasting and prophetic. His vision of America was a darkening one. As early as 1904 he wrote of a possible reversion to militarism. The deadpan humor of his literary style only highlighted his conception of America as a system of vested business interests propped up by indispensable canons of waste, artificial scarcity, unproductive salesmanship, war, and conspicuous consumption.

Further Reading

The standard biography of Veblen is Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein Veblen and His America (1934). A revealing portrait of Veblen in his Stanford years, written by a student who lived in his cottage, is contained in Robert Duffus, The Innocents at Cedro: A Memoir of Thorstein Veblen and Some Others (1944). J. A. Hobson, Veblen (1936), is the best early assessment of Veblen's work. One of the most authoritative evaluations is Douglas Dowd, ed., Thorstein Veblen: A Critical Reappraisal (1958). A good foil to the latter is David Riesman, Thorstein Veblen: A Critical Interpretation (1953).

Additional Sources

Diggins, John P., The bard of savagery: Thorstein Veblen and modern social theory, New York: Seabury Press, 1978.

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), Aldershot, Hants, England: Edward Elgar Pub. Ltd.; Brookfield, Vt., USA: Distributed in the United States by Ashgate Pub. Co., 1992.

Riesman, David, Thorstein Veblen, New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A.: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

Griffin, Robert A. (Robert Arthur), Thorstein Veblen, seer of American socialism, S.l.: Advocate Press; Hamden, CT: Distributed by Roger Books, 1982.

Veblen, Thorstein (1857-1929) American economist and sociologist. He is remembered in political and moral philosophy for the doctrine of conspicuous consumption, expressed in The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). He identifies the fundamental need to display financial well-being in what would otherwise seem wasteful display, in order to manifest status and stability, and to distinguish oneself from those slightly less well-off. Veblen argues that the principle is a human universal that explains a large variety of social phenomena. For example, we appreciate a well-trimmed lawn because it is a sign of surplus labour and wealth, or employ a butler because having an able-bodied man doing next to nothing is more meritorious than having someone who could not do much else. See also Mandeville, Smith, vanity.

(1857-1929), economist and social critic. Veblen's criticisms of the accepted corpus of economic theory and his analyses of economic and social change helped form the basis of the institutionalist school of economic thought and earned for him a reputation as a skilled satirist and critic of capitalist society.

Veblen was born into the culturally isolated Norwegian immigrant community of the Upper Midwest. English was still his second language when he entered college. He remained somewhat of an outsider to mainstream American society throughout his life, and the descriptions of aspects of that society found in his books sometimes have the flavor of an anthropologist's account of an alien culture.

Veblen believed the economic theory of his day to be built on faulty assumptions about the nature of people and society. He argued that economics would not be a modern science until economists adopted an "evolutionary" viewpoint, recognizing and seeking to explain past and ongoing changes in customary patterns of economic and social interaction. Veblen's own theories focused on the role of technology in shaping a society's value system, which in turn influenced all other aspects of social organization. Social change occurred as technological innovations originally introduced to further ends consistent with one value system led to the formation of an alternative value system. Veblen incorporated into his theories aspects of William Graham Sumner's evolutionary social theory and John Dewey's instrumentalism, as well as strands of anthropological research. In many respects Veblen's ideas resembled those of Karl Marx, although he rejected the labor theory of value and the teleological elements of Marxism.

Veblen is best known for his first book, The

Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), which he presented as a scientific analysis of upper-class mores and behaviors. It portrayed the life of the well-bred individual as an unremitting quest for status in a pecuniary culture--that is, a culture in which status was based upon wealth. It was in this context that Veblen coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" to describe spending undertaken mainly to demonstrate for others the spender's ability to pay. The book reached an audience far beyond the economics profession. (Most readers believed it to be as much satire as scholarship.)

A general theme in Veblen's many books and articles was that the system of private property was no longer compatible with the technological basis of modern industry. Veblen also elaborated on what he believed to be an unstable dichotomy in modern society, differentiating between industrial occupations, which were involved with the production of goods via machine-based processes, and business occupations, which were involved with the purchase and sale of goods in the pursuit of profit. Associated with these types of occupations were two antagonistic worldviews. Veblen insisted that a social upheaval was imminent, as those in industrial occupations were coming to question the social value of business activity and the system of private property upon which it was based.

Most of Veblen's career was spent in academe, where he acquired a reputation among colleagues as a brilliant intellect who could bring a great deal of knowledge and considerable wit to bear on the discussion of almost any subject. But his unwillingness to conduct his personal life in accordance with the prevailing norms of the academic community and his failure to show the expected deference toward constituted authority led to his dismissal from more than one university and kept him from ever achieving the rank of full professor.

The influence of Veblen's ideas peaked in the decade following his death, as the Great Depression and the rise of fascism in Europe seemed to bear out his predictions regarding the future of capitalism. Many prominent figures in the New Deal, including Rexford Tugwell and Jerome Frank, counted themselves as followers of Veblen. Some aspects of his worldview have entered the popular culture, including his characterization of the pecuniary culture and his unflattering portrayal of business employments. His ideas, however, have had little impact on the field of economics. Even at its height in the twenties and thirties the institutionalist movement he inspired involved only a small fraction of the economics profession, and mainstream economic theory retains today many of the characteristics that led Veblen to dismiss its turn-of-the-century counterpart as "pre-Darwinian" and thus obsolete.

Bibliography:

Joseph Dorfman, Thorstein Veblen and His America (1934; reprint, 1961); Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899; reprint, 1934).

Author:

Jeff E. Biddle

See also Literature; New Deal.

Quotes:

"It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community."

"The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods"

"In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth."

Thorstein Veblen

Institutional economics
Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929)
Birth	July 30, 1857(1857-07-30) (Cato, Wisconsin)
Death	August 3, 1929 (aged 72)
Nationality	Norwegian-American
Field	evolutionary economics; sociology
Influences	William Graham Sumner, William James, William McDougall, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, Herbert Spencer[1]
Opposed	Karl Marx, Neoclassical economics, German historical school
Influenced	Wesley Clair Mitchell, Clarence Edwin Ayres, John Kenneth Galbraith, C. Wright Mills, Robert A. Brady, Harold Adams Innis, Edith Penrose, Jonathan Nitzan
Contributions	conspicuous consumption, penalty of taking the lead, ceremonial / instrumental dichotomy

Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Tosten Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist and a primary mentor, along with John R. Commons, of the institutional economics movement. He was an impassioned critic of the performance of the American economy, and is most famous for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899).

Contents 1 Biography 2 Veblen’s writing 3 Veblen’s intellectual legacy 4 Family 5 Notes 6 Major works of Thorstein Veblen 7 Secondary sources 8 See also 9 External links

Biography

Veblen was born in Cato, Wisconsin, of Norwegian immigrant parents. Although Norwegian was his first language, he learned English from both neighbors and school, which he began at the age of 5.^[2] His family was highly successful and placed great emphasis on education and hard work, all of which undoubtedly contributed to his later scorn for what he termed “conspicuous consumption” and waste of the gilded age.^[3]

He obtained his B.A. in economics at Carleton College (1880), under John Bates Clark, a leading economist in the emerging body of thought now identified as neoclassical economics. He then undertook graduate work at Johns Hopkins University under Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of the pragmatist school in philosophy, and subsequently received his Ph.D. in 1884 at Yale University, under the direction of William Graham Sumner, a proponent of laissez-faire economic policies. His dissertation won the John Addison Porter Prize for that year.^[3] Perhaps the most important intellectual influences on Veblen were Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer, whose work in the last half of the 19th century sparked an enormous interest in the evolutionary perspective on human societies.^[4]

From 1891 to 1892, after six years spent reading voluminously at the family farm where he went to recover from malaria, Veblen continued studying as a graduate student, now in economics, at Cornell University under James Laurence Laughlin.^[3]

In 1892, he became a professor at the newly opened University of Chicago, simultaneously serving as managing editor of the Journal of Political Economy. In 1906, he received an appointment at Stanford University, where he left, it is often written, because of “womanizing.” The rumors of Veblen's womanizing probably followed him from the University of Chicago, where difficulties with his eccentric first wife had led some to see him, probably wrongly, as a roué. It is possible that these rumors were used as a reason to terminate the employment of a man who was widely regarded as a poor teacher and a radical critic.^[5]

In 1911, Veblen joined the faculty of the University of Missouri, where he had support from Herbert Davenport, the head of the economics department. Veblen was not fond of Columbia, Missouri, but remained there through 1918. In that year, he moved to New York to begin work as an editor of The Dial, and then in 1919, along with Charles Beard, James Harvey Robinson and John Dewey, helped found the New School for Social Research (known today as The New School). From 1919 through 1926 Veblen continued to write and be involved in activities at The New School.^[3] The Engineers and the Price System was written during this period.^[6]

In 1927 Veblen returned to the property that he still owned in Palo Alto and died there in 1929.^[3] His death came less than three months before the momentous crash of the U.S. stock market, which heralded the Great Depression.

Veblen’s writing

Veblen developed a 20th century evolutionary economics based upon Darwinian principles and new ideas emerging from anthropology, sociology, and psychology. Unlike the neoclassical economics that was emerging at the same time, Veblen described economic behavior as both socially and individually determined and saw economic organization as a process of ongoing evolution. This evolution was driven by the human instincts of emulation, predation, workmanship, parental bent, and idle curiosity. Veblen wanted economists to grasp the effects of social and cultural change on economic changes. In The Theory of the Leisure Class, which is probably his best-known work, because of its satiric look at American society, the instincts of emulation and predation play a major role. People, rich and poor alike, attempt to impress others and seek to gain advantage through what Veblen coined "conspicuous consumption" and the ability to engage in “conspicuous leisure.” In this work Veblen argued that consumption is used as a way to gain and signal status. Through "conspicuous consumption" often came "conspicuous waste," which Veblen detested.

In The Theory of Business Enterprise, which was published in 1904, at the height of American concern with the growth of business combinations and trusts, Veblen employed his evolutionary analysis to explain these new forms. He saw them as a consequence of the growth of industrial processes in a context of small business firms that had evolved earlier to organize craft production. The new industrial processes impelled integration and provided lucrative opportunities for those who managed it. What resulted was, as Veblen saw it, a conflict between businessmen and engineers, with businessmen representing the older order and engineers as the innovators of new ways of doing things. In combination with the tendencies described in The Theory of the Leisure Class, this conflict resulted in waste and “predation” that served to enhance the social status of those who could benefit from predatory claims to goods and services.

Veblen generalized the conflict between businessmen and engineers by saying that human society would always involve conflict between existing norms with vested interests and new norms developed out of an innate human tendency to manipulate and learn about the physical world in which we exist. He also generalized his model to include his theory of instincts, processes of evolution as absorbed from Sumner, as enhanced by his own reading of evolutionary science, and Pragmatic philosophy first learned from Peirce. The instinct of idle curiosity led humans to manipulate nature in new ways and this led to changes in what he called the material means of life. Because, as per the Pragmatists, our ideas about the world are a human construct rather than mirrors of reality, changing ways of manipulating nature lead to changing constructs and to changing notions of truth and authority as well as patterns of behavior (institutions). Societies and economies evolve as a consequence, but do so via a process of conflict between vested interests and older forms and the new. Veblen never wrote with any confidence that the new ways were better ways, but he was sure in the last three decades of his life that the American economy could have, in the absence of vested interests, produced more for more people. In the years just after World War I he looked to engineers to make the American economy more efficient.

In addition to The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise, Veblen’s monograph "Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution", and his many essays, including “Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science,” and “The Place of Science in Modern Civilization,” remain influential.

Veblen’s intellectual legacy

In spite of difficulties of sometimes archaic language, caused in large part by Veblen’s struggles with the terminology of unilinear evolution and of biological determination of social variation that still dominated social thought when he began to write, Veblen’s work remains relevant, and not simply for the phrase “conspicuous consumption.” His evolutionary approach to the study of economic systems is once again in vogue and his model of recurring conflict between the existing order and new ways can be of great value in understanding the new global economy.

The handicap principle of evolutionary sexual selection is often compared to Veblen's "conspicuous consumption".

Veblen, as noted, is regarded as one of the co-founders (with John R. Commons, Wesley C. Mitchell, and others) of the American school of Institutional economics. Present-day practitioners who adhere to this school organise themselves in The Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) and the Association for Institutional Economics (AFIT). AFEE gives an annual Veblen-Commons (see John R. Commons) award for work in Institutional Economics and publishes the Journal of Economic Issues. Some unaligned practitioners include theorists of the concept of "differential accumulation".^[7]

Veblen proposes a soviet of engineers in one chapter in The Engineers and the Price System^[8]. According to Yngve Ramstad^[9], this work's view that engineers, not workers, would overthrow capitalism was a "novel view". Daniel Bell sees an affinity between Veblen and the Technocracy movement^[10].

Veblen is favorably cited by some Feminist economists.

Veblen’s work has also often been cited in treatments of American literature.^[11]

Family

Veblen's nephew Oswald Veblen became a famous mathematician.

Notes

1. ^ Veblen, Thorstein. 1898. "Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science." The Quarterly Journal of Economics.Volume 12, 1898.
2. ^ Bartley 1997
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Dorfman, Joseph (1934). Thorstein Veblen and His America. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0678000077. 
4. ^ Eff 1989. Hodgson 1998, 2004.
5. ^ Jorgensen and Jorgensen 1999
6. ^ The Engineers and the Price System, 1921.
7. ^ See Chapter 2, "Capital as Power" in The Global Political Economy of Israel by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler.
8. ^ Rick Tilman, Thorstein Veblen and His Critics, 1891-1963, Princeton University Press (1992)
9. ^ "Veblen, Thorstein", Yngve Ramstad, in The Elgar Companion to Institutional and Evolutionary Economics (edited by G. M. Hodgson, W. J. Samuels, and M. R. Tool), Edward Edgar (1994)
10. ^ Daniel Bell, "Veblen and the New Class", American Scholar, V. 32 (Autumn 1963) (cited in Rick Tilman, Thorstein Veblen and His Critics, 1891-1963, Princeton University Press (1992))
11. ^ Thorstein Veblen is featured in The Big Money by John Dos Passos. He is also mentioned in Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

Major works of Thorstein Veblen

• "Kant's Critique of Judgement", 1884, Journal of Speculative Philosophy.
• "Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism", 1891, Annals of AAPSS.
• "Bohm-Bawerk's Definition of Capital and the Source of Wages" , 1892, QJE.
• "The Overproduction Fallacy", 1892, QJE.
• "The Food Supply and the Price of Wheat", 1893, JPE.
• "The Army of the Commonweal", 1894, JPE.
• "The Economic Theory of Women's Dress", 1894, Popular Science Monthly.
• "Review of Karl Marx's Poverty of Philosophy", 1896, JPE.
• "Review of Werner Sombart's Sozialismus", 1897, JPE.
• "Review of Gustav Schmoller's Über einige Grundfragen der Sozialpolitik", 1898, JPE.
• "Review of Turgot's Reflections", 1898, JPE.
• "Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?" , 1898, QJE.
• "The Beginnings of Ownership" , 1898, American Journal of Sociology.
• "The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor" , 1898, American Journal of Sociology.
• "The Barbarian Status of Women" , 1898, American Journal of Sociology.
• The Theory of the Leisure Class: an economic study of institutions, 1899.
• "The Preconceptions of Economic Science", (1899,1900), QJE. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• "Industrial and Pecuniary Employments", 1901, Publications of the AEA. JSTOR
• "Gustav Schmoller's Economics", 1901, QJE.
• "Arts and Crafts", 1902, JPE.
• "Review of Werner Sombart's Der moderne Kapitalismus", 1903, JPE.
• "Review of J.A. Hobson's Imperialism", 1903, JPE.
• "An Early Experiment in Trusts", 1904, JPE.
• "Review of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations", 1904, JPE.
• Theory of Business Enterprise, 1904.
• "Credit and Prices", 1905, JPE. JSTOR
• "The Place of Science in Modern Civilization", 1906, American J of Sociology. JSTOR
• "Professor Clark's Economics", 1906, QJE.
• "The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers", (1906,1907), QJE.
• "Fisher's Capital and Income" , 1907, Political Science Quarterly.
• "The Evolution of the Scientific Point of View", 1908, University of California Chronicle.
• "On the Nature of Capital", 1908, QJE. JSTOR
• "Fisher's Rate of Interest" , 1909, Political Science Quarterly.
• "The Limitations of Marginal Utility" , 1909, JPE.
• "Christian Morals and the Competitive System", 1910, International J of Ethics. JSTOR
• "The Mutation Theory and the Blond Race", 1913, Journal of Race Development.
• "The Blond Race and the Aryan Culture", 1913, Univ of Missouri Bulletin
• The Instincts of Worksmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, 1914.
• "The Opportunity of Japan", 1915, Journal of Race Development.
• Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, 1915.
• An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation by Veblen at Project Gutenberg , pdf
• "On the General Principles of a Policy of Reconstruction", 1918, J of the National Institute of Social Sciences.
• "Passing of National Frontiers", 1918, Dial.
• "Menial Servants during the Period of War", 1918, Public.
• "Farm Labor for the Period of War", 1918, Public.
• "The War and Higher Learning", 1918, Dial.
• "The Modern Point of View and the New Order", 1918, Dial.
• The Higher Learning In America: A Memorandum On the Conduct of Universities By Business Men , 1918.
• The Vested Interests and the Common Man, 1919., pdf
• "The Intellectual Pre-Eminence of Jews in Modern Europe", 1919, Political Science Quarterly. JSTOR
• "On the Nature and Uses of Sabotage", 1919, Dial.
• "Bolshevism is a Menace to the Vested Interests", 1919, Dial.
• "Peace", 1919, Dial.
• "The Captains of Finance and the Engineers", 1919, Dial.
• "The Industrial System and the Captains of Industry", 1919, Dial.
• The Place of Science in Modern Civilization and other essays, 1919., also at Google Books
• "Review of J.M.Keynes's Economic Consequences of the Peace , 1920, Political Science Quarterly. JSTOR
• The Engineers and the Price System, 1921.
• Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: the case of America, 1923.
• "Economic theory in the Calculable Future", 1925, AER. JSTOR
• "Introduction" in The Laxdaela Saga, 1925.
• Essays in Our Changing Order, 1927.

Secondary sources

• Adorno, Theodor W. 1967. "Prisms." The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
• Bartley, Russel H. 1997. "In Search of Thorstein Veblen: Further Inquiries into His Life and Work." International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.11(January):129-173.
• Dugger, William M. 2006. "Veblen's Radical Theory of Social Evolution." Journal of Economic Issues.40(September):651-72.
• Eff, E. Anthon. 1989. "History of Thought as Ceremonial Genealogy: The Neglected Influence of Herbert Spencer on Thorstein Veblen." Journal of Economic Issues. 23 (September): 689-716.
• Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 1998. "On the Evolution of Thorstein Veblen's Evolutionary Economics" in Cambridge Journal of Economics. 22(4):415-431.
• Hodgson, Geoffrey M. 2004 The Evolution of Institutional Economics: Agency, Structure and Darwinism in American Institutionalism. Routledge: London and New York.
• Jorgensen, Elizabeth Watkins and Henry Irvin Jorgensen. 1999, Thorstein Veblen: Victorian Firebrand, M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 076560258X
• Knoedler, Janet T. 1997. "Veblen and Technical Efficiency." Journal of Economic Issues. 31(?):???-???.
• McCormick, Ken. 2006. "Veblen in Plain English," Cambria Press. ISBN 0977356760
• Riesman, David. 1960. Thorstein Veblen: A Critical Interpretation. Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Tilman, Rick. 1992. Thorstein Veblen and His Critics, 1891-1963. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691042861
• Tilman, Rick. 1996. The Intellectual Legacy of Thorstein Veblen: Unresolved Issues.Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313299463

See also

• The Theory of the Leisure Class
• Veblen good
• Thorstein Veblen Farmstead

External links

• Veblen’s works, including The Theory of the Leisure Class, The Theory of Business Enterprise, and many of his best articles are available from these sites:
  • Veblen page at Archive for the History of Economic Thought, McMaster University
    • T.Veblen: Why is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science?
    • T.Veblen: The Beginning of Ownership
    • T.Veblen: Theory of Business Enterprise
    • T.Veblen: The Engineers and the price system
• Association for Evolutionary Economics at www.orgs.bucknell.edu and
• http://cepa.newschool.edu/het.
• Works by Thorstein Veblen at Project Gutenberg
  • Project Gutenberg e-text of The Theory of the Leisure Class
  • Project Gutenberg e-text of An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation
• Theory of the Leisure Class from American Studies at the University of Virginia
• searchable facsimile An inquiry into the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation. Publisher: New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1919
• searchable facsimile The place of science in modern civilisation and other essays. Publisher: New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1919
• searchable facsimile The Vested Interests and the Common Man ("The modern point of view and the new order"). Publisher: New York, B.W. Huebsch, 1919
• e-texts -- The Veblenite -- (Complete Works, as far as not copyright-protected, biography, bibliography and related materials)
  • Books and Translations [1]
  • Essays in Economics [2]
  • War Essays, Memoranda, Suggestions [3]
  • Miscellaneous Papers, Reviews [4]
• The Veblen Farmstead where Thorstein Veblen grew up is listed as a National Historical Landmark
• Veblen's summer cabin on Washington Island Wisconsin, where he did much of his writing, is being restored.
• Thorstein Veblen's Web by Harrison Mujica-Jenkins at latephilosophers.com

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