Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good. With Matthew Watson Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick Bill Waller Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York And Mary Wrenn Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Charles Camic, Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics (Harvard University Press, 2021) John P. Diggins, Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class (Princeton University Press, 1999) John P. Diggins, The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory (Seabury Press, 1978) John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (Penguin, 1999) Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers (Penguin, 2000), particularly the chapter ‘The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen’ Ken McCormick, Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen’s Economics (Cambria Press, 2006) Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (Yale University Press, 2012) Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need (William Morrow & Company, 1999) Juliet B. Schor, Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005) Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (first published 1899; Oxford University Press, 2009) Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise (first published 1904; Legare Street Press, 2022) Thorstein Veblen, The Higher Learning in America (first published 2018; Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) Thorstein Veblen, Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (first published 1923; Routledge, 2017) Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption (Penguin, 2005) Thorstein Veblen, The Complete Works (Musaicum Books, 2017) Charles J. Whalen (ed.), Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World (Routledge, 2021)
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In 1899, at the height of the American Gilded Age, Fausteen Veblen wrote the theory of the leisure class, a reminder that all that glisters is not gold babel, and picked up on traits of the waning landed class of Americans, and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society.
He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, and developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good.
It was a bestseller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life.
With me to discuss the theory of the leisure class are Matthew Watson, professor of political economy at the University of Warwick, Bill Waller, professor of economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York, and Mary Wren, senior lecturer in economics at the University of the west of England.
Mary Wren, what was Thornstein Webler's background?
Veblen was born in 1857 in Cato, Wisconsin.
He was the 6th of twelve children, and just a decade before, his parents had immigrated over to the United States in a wave of immigration from Norway.
The dispossessed farmers of Norway into the midwest, his parents farmed.
Eventually they built up enough money wealth to move to Minnesota and to buy a farmstead there.
Veblen's family was very focused on education, made sure all twelve of their children received all of their schooling, and pretty rare for those times.
They had a pretty egalitarian view of education.
So all the boys and girls were encouraged to go to school close to the Veblen farm.
A new college opened, Carleton College, and the Veblen siblings would go through there to study for their undergraduate degrees, and Veblen did as well.
While he was at Carleton, by chance, one of his professors was John Bates Clark, who would go on to become a very famous economist and a great influence on Veblen, and had a great influence on Veblen.
What was changing in America, broadly, in the so called gilded age?