| The Social Criticism of Thorstein Veblen |
| i shouldn't need to tell anyone that there is a great deal of confusion in America surrounding the words "Communism" and "Socialism". i have run across a fairly old encyclopedia that told me for the first time that Socialism was a term in use long before Marx and Engels published their Manifesto of the Communist Party. (by the way, did you know that they had to share one pencil :-) Thorstein Veblen seems to have given plenty of attention to the study of Marxist writings, but i don't believe that he adhered to the belief in the wholesale abolition of private property rights, which was a central tenet of the Communist Manifesto. He does talk a great deal about "absentee ownership" in his book "The Engineers & The Price System", and was very concerned about inefficient duplication of marketing and distribution, as well as "sabotage" of industrial capacity for the express purpose of manipulating higher profit yeilds. He does express a great deal of concern that the Technicians & the Actual Labourers, those most essential for the "creation" of Industrial Wealth have too little control (in 1921, at the time of the writing.)over the very machines they operate. in the book, "An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace", he analyzes the psychological forces that compell various peoples' and nationalities to engage in war. He definitely believed that "Imperial" forms of government were more warlike than Modern Democratic Systems, but he seems be consistently arguing for the superiority of the idea of a "CommonWealth". A number of his predictions in this book seem almost prophetic. Published near the end of the First World War, he seems to be saying that another conflict with both Germany and Japan would be inevitable, and expresses his deep concerns for the inherently "structural" psychological differences in their forms of Government. He closes the book with a chapter on the prospects for the sustainability of "Property Rights"... ...arguing rather delicately, that some form of 'revision' of property-rights may be essential for the mainenance of peace. |
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| This page is maintained by Brian Daniel Eck, who is solely responsible for it's content. It was last modified on 2003.04.23. If you have any questions or comments concerning it's subject matter, feel free to communicate with me personally at: [email protected] |
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| "...For its' long-term biological success, as well as for the continued integrity of a people's culture, a peace of non-resistance, under good or evil auspices, is more to be desired than Imperial Dominion." |
| An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace - page 131 Thorstein Veblen copyright 1917 |
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