Theory of the Leisure Class

[question everything]

The institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance, and so reducing their consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make them incapable of the effort required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought.

Thorstein Veblen, Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), Main Point 2.

[kimbutgar]

1. I remember having to read this in college

I had to check my dictionary constantly. We complained to the professor about how hard it was to read the book. He laughed and said that was the point and we didn't have to finish it but someday we would revisit the book in our lifetimes. This was in 1977!

Amazing that over 100 years later the more things change the more they stay the same.

[question everything]

2. Indeed. I liked his Point 4

Main Point 4: Since the leisure class discourages change, it hinders evolutionary progress.

The characteristic attitude of the class may be summed up in the maxim: Whatever is, is right" whereas the law of natural selection, as applied to human institutions, gives the axiom: "Whatever is, is wrong." Not that the institutions of today are wholly wrong for the purposes of the life of today, but they are, always and in the nature of things, wrong to some extent. They are the result of a more or less inadequate adjustment of the methods of living to a situation which prevailed at some point in the past development.

[CTyankee]

3. I read it in an Econ course I took in grad school...I thought he was an interesting guy...