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Thorstein Veblen
47 quotes
“The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Veblen (1908) The Evolution of the Scientific Point of View, University of California Chronicle
“It is a matter of course and of absolute necessity to the conduct of business, that any discretionary businessman must be free to deal or not to deal in any given case; to limit or withhold the equipment under his control, without reservation. Business discretion and business strategy, in fact, has no other means by to work out its aims. So that, in effect, all business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) first seen 1917 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Veblen (1917) An Inquiry Into the Nature of Peace, and the Terms of Its Perpetuation, p. 168
“In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Veblen (1918) The Higher Learning in America. p. 155
“Any evolutionary science... is a close-knit body of theory. It is a theory of a process, of an unfolding sequence... of cumulative causation. The great deserts of the evolutionist leaders... lie... in their having shown how this colorless impersonal sequence of cause and effect can be made use of for theory proper, by virtue of its cumulative character.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: pp. 375-378; As cited in: Geoffrey M. Hodgson, "Veblen and darwinism." International review of sociology 14.3 (2004): 343-361
“The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In itself and in its consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products of their industry, and so there arises the ownership of things as well as of persons.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The possession of wealth confers honor; it is an invidious distinction.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“However widely, or equally, or "fairly", it may be distributed, no general increase of the community's wealth can make any approach to satiating this need, the ground of which is the desire of every one to excel every one else in the accumulation of goods.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“While the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the modern industrial communities... the apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous... that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner without help.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The latter-day outcome of this evolution of an archaic institution, the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the man... has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which he produces. But she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure and consumption is the abiding mark of the unfree servant.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In modern civilized communities... the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in vogue in the next higher stratum.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Leisure held the first place at the start, and came to hold a rank very much above wasteful consumption of goods... From that point onward, consumption has gained ground, until, at present, it unquestionably holds the primacy.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is much more difficult to recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an accession of wealth.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A standard of living is of the nature of habit. ...it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that has once become habitual.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The need of conspicuous waste... stands ready to absorb any increase in the community's industrial efficiency or output of goods.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As increased industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community are bent to the compassing of a higher result in conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The domestic life of most classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the éclat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on before the eyes of observers.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the priestly life of all anthropomorphic cults the marks of a vicarious consumption of time are visible.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All ritual has a notable tendency to reduce itself to a rehearsal of formulas.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is probably no cult in which ideals of pecuniary merit have not been called in to supplement the ideals of ceremonial adequacy that guide men's conception of what is right in the matter of sacred apparatus.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In common with other men, the business man is moved by ideals of serviceability and an aspiration to make the way of life easier for his fellows... Motives of this kind detract from business efficiency, and an undue yielding to them on the part of business men is to be deprecated as an infirmity. Still, throughout men's dealings with one another and with the interests of the community there runs a sense of equity, fair dealing, and workmanlike integrity.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 41-42. as cited in: Geoffrey Hodgson (2004). The Evolution of Institutional Economics. p. 202
“The sequence of the process involves both the one and the other, both the apparatus and the materials, in such intimate interaction that the process cannot be spoken of simply as an action of the apparatus upon the materials. It is not simply that the apparatus reshapes the materials; the materials reshape themselves by the help of the apparatus... The whole concert of industrial operations is to be taken as a machine process, made up of interlocking detail processes, rather than as a multiplicity of mechanical appliances each doing its particular work in severalty.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To make effective use of the modern system of communication in any way or all of its ramifications (streets, railways, steamship lines, telephone, telegraph, postal service, etc.), men are required to adapt their needs and their motions to the exigencies of the process whereby this civilized method of intercourse is carried into effect. The service is standardized, and therefore the use of it is standardized also... one's plans and projects must be conceived and worked out in terms of those standard units which the system imposes.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The machine process pervades the modern life and dominates it in a mechanical sense. Its dominance is seen in the enforcement of precise mechanical measurements and adjustment and the reduction of all manner of things, purposes and acts, necessities, conveniences, and amenities of life, to standard units.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Without much preliminary exposition and without feeling himself to be out of touch with his contemporaries, Darwin set to work to explain species in terms of the process out of which they have arisen, rather than out of the prime cause to which the distinction between them may he due.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Darwin’s] inquiry characteristically confines itself to the process of cumulative change. His results, as well as his specific determination of the factors at work in this process of cumulative change, have been questioned; perhaps they are open to all the criticisms levelled against them as well as a few more not thought of; but the scope and method given to scientific enquiry by Darwin and the generation whose spokesman he is has substantially not been questioned, except by that diminishing contingent of the faithful”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The current periodical press... is a vehicle for advertisements. ...Exceptions ...are official and minor propagandist periodicals, and, in an uncertain measure, scientific journals. ...The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiments of his readers, and the tell them what they like to believe. ...His second duty is to see that nothing is said which may discountenance ...his advertisers. ...The net result is that both the news columns and the editorial columns are commonly meretricious in a high degree.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Systematic insincerity on the part of purveyors of information and leaders of opinion may be deplored by persons who stickle for truth and pin their hopes of social salvation on the spread of accurate information. ...[T]he insincerity is guided by a wish to avoid any lesion of the received preconceptions and prejudices. The insincerity of the newspapers and magazines seems, on the whole, to be of a conservative trend.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Snobbery" is here used without disrespect, as a convenient term to denote the element of strain involved in the quest for gentility on the part of persons whose accustomed social standing is less high or less authentic than their aspirations.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A civilization which is dominated by this matter-of-fact insight must prevail against any cultural scheme that lacks this element. This characteristic of western civilization comes to a head in modern science, and finds its highest material expression in the technology of the machine industry.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Frank Knight
“The means whereby this work of Nature is brought to its consummate issue are forces of Nature working under her Laws by the method of cause and effect. The principle, or "law," of causation is a metaphysical postulate; in the sense that such a fact as causation is unproved and unprovable. No man has ever observed a case of causation, as is a commonplace with the latterday psychologists.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[H]ere and now, as always and everywhere, invention is the mother of necessity.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The periodical press is not only a purveyor of news, opinions, and admonitions; it also supplies the greater part of the literature currently read. ...The standards of excellence that govern this periodical literature... must in no way hamper the purposes of the advertisers. ...Taken in the aggregate, the literary output is designed to meet the tastes of that large body of people who are in the habit of buying freely. The successful magazine writers... follow the taste of the class to whom they speak... They must also conform to the fancies and prejudices of this class as regards the ideals—artistic, moral, religious, or social—for which they speak. The class... is that great body of people who are in moderately easy circumstances... the respectable middle class... of various shades of conservatism, affectation, and snobbery.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Habituation to bargaining and to the competitive principles of business necessarily brings it about that pecuniary standards of efficiency invade (contaminate) the sense of workmanship; so that work, workmen, equipment and products come to be rated on a scale of money values, which has only a circuitous and often only a putative relation to their workmanlike efficiency or their serviceability. Those occupations and those aptitudes that yield good returns in terms of price are reputed valuable and commendable, — the accepted test of success, and even of serviceability, being the gains acquired. Workmanship comes to be confused with salesmanship, until tact, effrontery and prevarication have come to serve as a standard of efficiency, and unearned gain is accepted as the measure of productiveness.”
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source