[See also Veblen's review:
MR. CUMMINGS'S STRICTURES ON "THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS." (in Notes).
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 8, No. 1. (Dec., 1899), pp. 106-117.]
John Cummings: The Theory of the Leisure Class(1*)
The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 7, No. 4. (Sep., 1899), pp. 425-455.
-------------------------------
[425] As a contribution to the general theory of sociology Dr. Veblen's Theory 
of the Leisure Class requires no other commendation for its scholarly 
performance than that which a casual reading of the work readily inspires. Its 
highly original character makes any abridgment of it exceedingly difficult and 
inadequate, and such an abridgment cannot be even attempted here. For those 
familiar with the author's other publications, it is needless to add that his 
analysis of social conventions has been fearless and accurate. The following 
pages, however, are devoted to a discussion of certain points of view in which 
the author seems to the writer to have taken an incomplete survey of the facts, 
or to have allowed his interpretation of facts to be influenced by personal 
animus. It is in the entire confidence that reference to the work itself will 
correct any misconceptions to which the criticisms here offered may give rise 
that these pages are written.
_________
1) The Theory of the Leisure Class; An economic study in the evolution of 
institutions.
By THORSTEIN B. VEBLEN. The Macmillan Company, 1899. 8vo. pp. vi + 400.

[426] Of the author's ethnological generalizations and psychological speculation 
concerning primitive stages of civilization it may be remarked in passing that 
they are not altogether convincing, and that the attempt to read modern 
psychology into primitive conditions conduces to a somewhat mystical 
interpretation of historical phenomena. A psychological reconstruction of 
primitive society seldom serves any other purpose than to arouse suspicions, 
even where conclusions are themselves amply verified on other grounds, and it is 
a constant disappointment to find theses of sociological consequence based upon 
a specious selection of historical evidence. The "sense of scientific fitness" - 
to quote from the author's own preface - is never "offended by recourse to 
homely facts;" rather it is off ended, if at all, by any recourse to 
introspective mysticism in handling sociological data.
The Theory of the Leisure Class bears upon economic theory in general chiefly 
through its conception of the motives which actuate men in their consumption of 
goods and services. These motives - which are conceived to actuate all 
consumers, not those of the leisure class alone - have their origin in the 
desire to create invidious distinctions. "Conspicuous consumption of valuable 
goods," writes the author, "is a means of reputability to the gentleman of 
leisure." And again: "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. ... The choice between them is a 
question of advertising expediency." Aesthetic and utilitarian judgments are all 
of them modified into accordance with the "canon of conspicuous waste" of time 
and services, or of goods. The requirements of beauty and respectability do not 
necessarily coincide, and where they do not that "beauty which is not 
accompanied by the accredited marks of good repute is not accepted." An instance 
of the aesthetic worth of evidences of costliness is found in the "appreciable 
uplifting and mellowing effect upon the worshiper's frame of mind," of "the 
expensive splendor of the house of worship."
[427] One other citation must suffice to illustrate the author's general theory 
of economic consumption: "We all feel," he says, "sincerely and without 
misgiving, that we are the more lifted up in spirit for having, even in the 
privacy of our own household, eaten our daily meal by the help of hand-wrought 
silver utensils, from hand-painted china (often of dubious artistic value) laid 
on high-priced table linen. Any retrogression from the standard of living which 
we are accustomed to regard as worthy in this respect is felt to be a grievous 
violation of our human dignity. So, also, for the last dozen years, candles have 
been a more pleasing source of light than any other. Candle-light is now softer, 
less distressing to well-bred eyes than oil, gas, or electric light. The same 
could not have been said thirty years ago, when candles were, or recently bad 
been, the cheapest available light for domestic use."
In the mind of the consumer the requirement of conspicuously wasteful 
consumption is, of course, not naively conceived as such, but rather as "a wish 
to conform to established usage, to avoid unfavorable notice and comment, to 
live up to the accepted canons of decency in the kind, amount, and grade of 
goods consumed, as well as in the decorous employment of his time and effort." 
Whether any given expenditure is of this wasteful sort or not must be determined 
independently of the consumer's own tastes. The test is not whether the 
consumption satisfies him, since his sophisticated tastes are gratified by all 
forms of conspicuous waste, but whether the consumption "serves to enhance human 
life on the whole - whether it furthers the lift process."
The theory thus formulates itself upon a philosophic conception of economic 
waste which takes the form of a conspicuous devotion of both time and goods to 
the creation of invidious distinction, Expenditure and consumption devoted to 
that end, since it does not "enhance life " nor serve the "generically human," 
is "wasted" - wasted because it does not "approve itself under the test of 
impersonal usefulness - usefulness as seen from the point of view of the 
generically human." Such [428] expenditure does not appear to the individual 
consumer to be waste, since the expenditure "has utility for him by virtue of 
his preference."
Now, without undertaking here any criticism of the moral and aesthetic judgments 
necessarily involved in the classifications of specific expenditures as waste, 
and of others as not waste - classifications which the author does not hesitate 
to make with considerable freedom throughout the course of his exposition - it 
is to be pointed out in this connection that whether the individual's tastes are 
to be accepted as ultimately determining or not, unfortunately the "generically 
human," upon which the author would rely, is an imaginary and fictitious phantom 
which has no existence at all apart from the individual conceiving it; and 
further, that there is no such thing as "impersonal usefulness." That is 
"useful" which ministers to our wants individually and severally, and an 
impersonal serving of the "generically human" is utterly inconceivable. That 
which any individual sets up to be the "generically human" proves on analysis to 
be so only on the assumption that ail other human beings exactly resemble the 
one who undertakes to declare what the " generically human" is. This assumption 
is obviously unwarranted, but even if it were true, it would still be true that 
the "generically human" was an individual conception; and the declaration of one 
individual would carry no ex cathedra weight of authority over other similar 
declarations, since the coincidence of the individual conception with the truly 
generic would be in any event a most phenomenally accidental occurrence, 
susceptible of no verification whatever. That which appears to the individual to 
be "generically human," on analysis, proves to be that which ministers directly 
or indirectly to his individual propensities which are the only human qualities 
he knows, and these he posits of society in general when he undertakes to 
construct the "generically human." If they change, his conception of the 
"generically human" is bound to change too. For the child this conception is 
something quite different from what it becomes in the man or woman, and from man 
to man it differs incalculably.
[429] All this has a direct bearing upon the theory of waste developed with 
reference to economic consumption.
In the philosophical sense it may be admitted that that which serves the 
"generically human" is alone ultimately useful and serviceable; but when it is 
borne in mind that the "generically human" materializes and manifests itself 
only in individual wants and propensities, for all practical purposes our 
category of utility - namely, that that which serves the "generically human" is 
really useful, and, therefore, not waste - reduces itself to the pathetically 
blind statement that that which satisfies really satisfies, therefore it is not 
unsatisfactory.
The test of waste cannot be "impersonal usefulness;" it must always be personal 
usefulness, and the denial of generic usefulness to that which is personally 
useful, is arbitrary and gratuitous. The economist accepts individual wants 
uncritically, and considers that expenditure economic which is directed to their 
satisfaction, that wasted which is not so directed. To take one of our author's 
own examples, the economist cannot consider labor expended in erecting costly 
church edifices "wasted," so long as those edifices satisfy the devotional sense 
of the community. The moral philosopher may or may not, but the economist may 
not pass judgment. The economist may point out that more shoes would be produced 
if the labor were employed in setting up a factory, but so long as the community 
prefers the edifice to more shoes, labor expended on the church edifice cannot 
be considered in any sense wasted. That devotional sense is just as generically 
human as the sense of cold, and the desire for warmth and nourishment.
To return to that feature of human nature which appears to dominate the 
philosophy of the Theory of the Leisure Class, namely, the spirit of emulation, 
if that is a human quality its satisfaction is satisfaction of the generically 
human. The more universal and dominant the spirit of emulation is, the more 
essentially generic it is in its character. Furthermore, if it be a fundamental 
incentive to human action, it must be regarded as a quality evolved in the 
progress of civilization, and one which stands for a real [430] force in that 
progress. In fact the author's "desire to create invidious distinctions" comes 
to identify itself with the desire to live; and it is directly associated with 
the desire to excel, since the only really "invidious" distinction is that which 
denotes degrees of excellence. Distinctions which have no foundation in 
excellence are not "invidious." If this seems inconsistent with common sense, 
which assures us that many distinctions are as a matter of fact " invidious" and 
"honorific," which are in no sense related to excellence - and if the appearance 
of excellence seems to be sought, not the excellence itself - it may be pointed 
out that the same is true of the most fundamental instincts of human nature; 
even the appetites for food and drink, abnormally developed, cease to represent 
real physical needs. With reference to the spirit of pecuniary emulation it must 
be borne in mind that the legitimate and reputable use of wealth is that use 
which does "enhance" life. So far as the spirit of emulation controls the 
unproductive consumption of the community it directs that consumption along 
lines which elicit society's approval, and this approval cannot be consistently 
extended, and is not in the long run, to those forms of expenditure which are 
actuated by motives of display alone.
Let us look more closely into this philosophy of waste. "Many items of customary 
expenditure," writes the author, "prove on analysis to be almost purely 
wasteful, and they are, therefore, honorific only [i. e., minister to our vanity 
only, are " invidious"], but after they have once been incorporated into the 
scale of decent consumption and so have become an integral part of one's scheme 
of life, it is quite as hard to give up these as it is to give up many items 
that conduce directly to one's physical comfort, or even that may be necessary 
to life and health. That is to say, the conspicuously wasteful honorific 
expenditure that confers spiritual well-being may become more indispensable than 
much of that expenditure which ministers to the 'lower' wants of physical well-
being or sustenance. It is notoriously just as difficult to recede from a 'high' 
standard of living as it is to lower a standard already relatively low; [431] 
although in the former cage the difficulty is a moral one. while in the latter 
it may involve a material deduction from the physical comforts of life."
We have in this passage an instance at once of unscientific terminology, and of 
an interesting psychological analysis of economic phenomena. The unsophisticated 
reader will be somewhat confused by the selection of epithets - confused to find 
those expenditures which are held to be, by those who make them, as necessary as 
"life and health," expenditures which confer "moral " and "spiritual well-
being," and form an integral part of a "decent" standard of living, in the game 
passage characterized as "purely" and "conspicuously wasteful." The explanation 
is that terms are used in a highly technical sense, and require a special 
interpretation. So interpreted, it would appear that the "spiritual well-being," 
since it is that well-being conferred by "conspicuously wasteful honorific 
expenditure," is something very near akin to vanity. Our vanity is satisfied by 
invidiously honorific expenditure; that is, by expenditure which is made with 
the sole ultimate motive of creating a distinction between him who spends and 
him who bag nothing to spend - the silk hat, the patent-leather shoe, the 
starched linen, do not minister to our comfort, to the unfolding of life; they 
minister to our vanity, because they are evidence of many honorific facts. The 
silk hat and the patent-leather shoe are evidences that we me not engaged in any 
sort of manual labor. since such labor would be impossible in such attire; and 
further, they are evidence that we have sufficient resources, as well as 
leisure, to buy and consume these articles. The same is true of most 
commodities. In a greater or less degree most articles consumed minister to our 
"spiritual well-being" by giving conspicuous evidence, "before the eyes of 
others," of waste, of needless expenditure, and of economic futility. "Goods are 
humilific, and therefore unattractive, if they show too thrifty an adaptation to 
the mechanical end sought, and do not include a margin of expensiveness on which 
to rest a complacent invidious comparison." The machine-worked silver service, 
even if it be a [432] perfect reproduction of a hand-chased service, does not 
appeal to our aesthetic sense of the beautiful, as; does the hand-chased 
service, which, indeed, possesses an additional aesthetic charm if the hand-work 
be a little bunglingly done, and so not easily mistaken for machine work. Our 
sense of the aesthetically beautiful is trained to reckon in labor cost as a 
factor in its aesthetic judgments.
It is not at all to be inferred, of course, from the above passage that an 
article which "conduces to our physical comfort" may not at the same time be 
invidiously "honorific" and satisfying to our "spiritual well-being" or vanity. 
Fruit and berries out of season are probably good examples of commodities which 
are invidiously honorific and so satisfying to our vanity, while they do at the 
some time minister to our physical satisfaction. Many commodities of practical 
utility carry this aesthetic aroma of costliness. The aesthetic sense is 
sensitive to the costliness of goods, and attaches greater aesthetic worth to 
the costly article by virtue of its evidence of costliness alone.
But does the conclusion to which the author comes necessarily follow - the 
conclusion, namely, that this added worth arises ultimately from a desire on the 
part of the consumer to create an invidious distinction? The question is not 
whether there may not be in any community individuals actuated by such a desire, 
nor whether some expenditures incurred by all individuals are not of this 
nature, but whether the aesthetic appreciation of costliness necessarily finds 
its cultural origin in the utility of such costliness for creating invidious 
distinctions. Such an explanation, if conceivably correct, is at least not at 
all inevitable. Articles of great utility are commonly the product of a 
considerable expenditure of labor, so that an aesthetic sensitiveness to cost 
may very well have developed by association - from the fact that things of 
lasting worth are commonly costly may have developed by association the notion 
that things costly me of lasting worth, without the entrance of the invidious 
element into our aesthetic judgment at all. In Dr. Veblen's philosophy, however, 
all our judgments are based on invidiousness. That is [433] "decent " which 
creates an invidious distinction. It is not the decency which vacates the 
distinction, but the distinction creates the decency, or at least maintains our 
conception of what is decent. Throughout all, it is the "quasi-sacerdotal 
office" of the "wealthy leisure class" to determine what the "community shall 
accept as decent and honorific." Even they are under the impelling force of the 
canon of invidious waste, for "it is especially to be noted that however high 
its authority and however free to the fundamental requirements of reputability 
[we are not told what these "fundamental requirements" are] it may have been at 
its inception, a specific formal observance can, under no circumstances, 
maintain itself in force if, with the lapse of time, or in its transmission to a 
lower pecuniary class, it is found to run counter to the ultimate ground of 
decency among civilized peoples, namely, serviceability for the purpose of an 
invidious comparison in pecuniary success." One is accustomed to regard as the 
"ultimate ground of decency" some such quality as cleanliness for its own sake, 
or courteous manners and command of good English, as means of facilitating 
social intercourse, but even these, along with all refinements of tasteful 
dress, are reputable only as means of creating invidious distinctions. Good 
manners are evidence of leisure in which to cultivate the amenities of life - 
"the abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and 
patent waste of time;" and reputable speech is valuable as evidence of time 
spent in acquiring facility and correctness of diction.
The extent to which this interpretation of good repute is carried may be 
inferred from the following comments upon the reputable use of language. "A 
discriminating avoidance of neologisms," says our author, " is honorific, not 
only because it argues that time has been wasted in acquiring the obsolescent 
habit of speech, but also as showing that the speaker has from infancy 
habitually associated with persons who have been familiar with the obsolescent 
idiom. It thereby goes to show his leisure class antecedents. Great purity of 
speech is prima facie evidence of several successive lives spent in other than 
vulgarly useful occupations."
[434] Correct use at English, therefore, is reputable since it conforms to 
"leisure class standards of virtue - archaism and waste." It any further step is 
required to complete a reductio ad absurdum, the reasoning may be carried on one 
step and the development of any power of speech at all set down as having 
probably resulted from the effort of primitive man to create an invidious 
distinction between himself and the other beasts who could not talk - not from 
his efforts to communicate with his kind.
One other application of the theory is instructive and will suffice to show how 
universally applicable it is. The wearing of the corset, according to the 
author, came into vogue and it is still worn as a means of incapacitating women 
for performing any sort of useful labor. The physical deformity caused by the 
constriction of the waist is an insignia of idleness and so an invidious 
distinction against those who have to labor and cannot regularly display the 
aesthetic charm of incapacity. The corset thus becomes an instrument of 
snobbery, employed by those who have risen high enough to afford the sacrifice 
of their personal efficiency to their personal vanity. For those classes so 
conspicuously wealthy that no aspersion can attach to them of toiling, this 
article of attire has lost much of its serviceability and is being renounced. It 
is, therefore, worn only by those who feel the need of an insignia of reputable 
freedom from manual labor. The full import of this illustration can be 
appreciated only in connection with the author's general theory of woman's 
economic function, which is the conspicuous performance of leisure for the good 
repute of her lord and master, i. e., her husband.
Such attenuations of the theory, however, should not blind one to the truth upon 
which it is built - a truth seldom brought to the surface of our consciousness - 
that men living in society to a much greater extent than they can possibly 
realize, are conventional in their conceptions, and substitute for their own 
naive judgments, the judgments of society. If it cannot be admitted that the 
ultimate ground of these conventions is in every instance [435] pecuniarily 
invidious serviceability, it is nevertheless true that they are too often 
uncritically accepted and acted upon and that they tend to survive the 
conditions which gave rise to them. If it be asked why men are so conventional, 
so willing to abide by social prescriptions, the explanation probably lies in 
the prosaic fact that the average man, and men in general, are much less 
original and spontaneous, than they take credit to themselves for being. The 
problem of living, to a much greater extent than is commonly realized, is 
conventionally solved for each individual living in the community. He acts in 
strict accordance with the moral standards developed by the society in which he 
lives, and seldom assumes the responsibility of undertaking to define for 
himself the end toward which his activities should be directed. Even it men were 
much more disposed to originality than they are, individual judgment could weigh 
but little against the experience of society which finds expression in social 
convention. In all civilized communities social life naturally fosters 
conventionality. Conformity, is the safeguard of social institutions and of 
social progress, and is what makes society a state preferable to solitude. It is 
safe to say that most men would choose to live the ethically high, in preference 
to the conventionally correct life - where the two are inconsistent with one 
another - if they were competent to see and free to choose; but they are not. 
The hungry boy, writes Spinoza, thinks that he will eat, and the angry man that 
be will have vengeance without appreciating that they are not free to think 
otherwise than they do. It is so with social conventions. We think we will wear 
certain clothes, but we are to only a very limited extent free to choose other 
clothes - free for example to wear Greek costumes, or to dress negligee on 
ceremonious occasions. We think we choose to live as we do without thinking at 
all critically how we live.
In the Theory of the Leisure Class this quality of conventionality and 
conservatism holds considerable prominence, but it is here conceived to be a 
leisure-class quality. A few brief citations may be made to show bow the theory 
works itself out in [436] this respect: Dr. Veblen asserts that "the office of 
the leisure class [i. e., "wealthy class " - the phrases are used 
interchangeably] in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve 
what is obsolescent." ... "The abjectly poor and all those persons whose 
energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance are 
conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day 
after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have 
small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today. From 
this proposition it follows that 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. The 
accumulation of wealth at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation 
at the lower end of the scale."
Again: "The institution of a leisure class hinders cultural development 
immediately (1) by the inertia proper to the class itself, and (2) through its 
prescriptive example of conspicuous waste and of conservatism, and indirectly 
through that system of unequal distribution of wealth and sustenance on which 
the institution rests.
"To this is to be added that the leisure class has also a material interest in 
leaving things as they are . ...
"All this, of course, has nothing to say in way of eulogy or deprecation of the 
office of the leisure class. ... The inhibition which it exercises may be 
salutary or the reverse. Whether it is the one or the other in any given case is 
a question of casuistry rather than at general theory."
The closing statement in the above passages, that the general theory is not 
concerned with special cases, in which the inhibitory influence exerted by the 
leisure class may be "salutary or the reverse," calls for some comment, since it 
is just these special cases which determine the truth or falsity of the general 
theory itself. This is so because any "salutary" inhibition or [437] 
conservatism is not in the least inhibition of social "progress" and 
"evolution," but on the contrary is the very condition and sine qua non of such 
progress. In "cultural development" the selection of the line of progress 
involves necessarily rejection of all diverging lines. Regarded from the point 
of view of all those who would lead society away from the line of "cultural 
development," not only all those who favor that development are "conservative," 
"inhibitory," and the reverse of "salutary," but all members who do not happen 
to look with favor upon the particular scheme of social salvation proposed are 
inhibitors. Theoretically there is but one right course of social evolution, 
while the number of wrong courses is infinite. If human experience counts for 
anything, "social evolution" depends upon the conservation of institutions 
developed in the past and the more perfect adjustment of these institutions to 
the accomplishment of human purposes. The class of progress is, therefore, bound 
to be conservative in every other respect than that of true progress.
Obviously, from the passages quoted above, it is not this sort of conservatism 
which is attributed to the wealthy class. Theirs is a conservatism involving 
inhibition of ad change, including progress itself: a conservatism which says 
that "whatever is, is right;" "whereas," writes Dr. Veblen, "the law of natural 
selection, as applied to human institutions, gives the axiom: 'whatever is, is 
wrong.'" ["Right" and "wrong," he adds, "are, of course, here used without 
conveying any reflection as to what ought or ought not to be" are "morally 
colorless"!] Now, as a matter of fact, whatever is, is clearly, at one and the 
same time, both right and wrong. Those institutions and habits of thought which 
have come down to the present generation from the past represent past progress; 
they are the evolutionary product of man's reaction upon his environment 
throughout those ages which have step by step developed man out of the ape. 
Those institutions represent the experience, not of one individual, but of the 
human race, not for a lifetime, but throughout a past period of indefinite 
duration. They are, therefore, worthy of conservation against innovation. They 
are "right" with [438] reference to all institutions and habits of thought less 
perfectly adapted to human environment, and " wrong" with reference to that 
perfect adaptation toward which society strives, which it can never attain. 
Whatever is, is imperfect, and therefore wrong, but it may nevertheless be the 
best that society knows today, and it is the product of a wider range of human 
experience than any single individual can have.
Furthermore, it is absurd to say of the wealthy leisure class that "it hinders 
cultural development," that "in social evolution" it "retards movement," and 
"conserves what is obsolescent," and that "all this" is not deprecatory nor has 
any bearing upon special cases. If the "theory" is not based upon special cases, 
it has no relation to fact whatever. A general theory must be generally true of 
special cases, or it is a false theory.
Turning now to another suggestion found in the above quotation and offered as 
another ground of leisure-class conservatism, it is pointed out that the 
"leisure class has also a material interest in leaving things as they are." This 
material interest lies in the ownership of the vested interest which the class 
represents. If this is intended to call attention to the fact that the wealth 
holders have more at stake than the non-propertied classes, it is a truism, 
since the non-propertied classes having nothing to lose are more likely to favor 
innovation, especially where innovation undertakes a more or less open 
confiscation of property by those whose claim to it lies in the fact that they 
want or need it, not that they have produced it. But if the wealth holders have 
material interest in "leaving things as they are," they have a greater material 
interest in making things better than they are. A railroad corporation has a 
material interest in preserving its railroad from destruction, in leaving it as 
it is, but the corporation has a greater material interest in making the 
railroad more efficient in service, and economical in management than it is. It 
is conservative against destruction, not against progress. The "inertia " of the 
wealth holders is inertia against the multifarious means of wealth dissipation, 
and it is largely because of their capacity for resisting schemes [439] for 
wealth dissipation that society enjoys any accumulation of wealth whatever. The 
ability to conserve wealth is less common than the ability to earn it.
We come finally to the assertion that "the accumulation of wealth at the upper 
end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale," and 
so induces a conservatism among those lower ranks which is based upon penury; 
and is a form of debility and mental exhaustion - a sort of social pathology. 
History, it may be observed, does not bear out the assertion that the abject 
classes are conservative in spirit. Whenever they have risen into dominance they 
have shown themselves to be quite the opposite, and ordinarily the brief 
duration of their dominance has been due to the want of that very conservatism 
here attributed to them. Neither the prescriptive power of the wealthy classes, 
nor the educative influence of want and penury, are sufficient to induce 
conservatism here.
But it is not by any means its direct bearing upon the argument in hand that 
gives to the above statement its chief interest. Chief interest, of course, 
attaches; to its bearing upon the property rights of wealth holders - upon the 
institution of private property. We are here told that "accumulation of wealth 
at the upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of 
the scale." This statement, introduced into the argument as an aside, is of such 
far-reaching import as to warrant careful consideration of it. If it can be 
substantiated it is in itself probably a sufficient condemnation of the 
institution of private ownership.
There is, of course, a sense in which it is true that accumulation at one end of 
the scale implies privation at the other; this is in the very simple sense that, 
if the wealth accumulated at the one end were distributed at the other end, them 
would be less privation there - at least immediately after the distribution. In 
this sense the industrious man deprives the lazy man of his livelihood, since 
the lazy man would have more, and suffer less, if he could pool his earnings 
with the earnings of the industrious man and share equally; in the same way the 
temperate man deprives the intemperate, the efficient the inefficient.
[440] It is, however, clearly not in this naive sense that the accumulation of 
wealth at one end of the scale is conceived to occasion privation at the other. 
The accumulation at one end is conceived to be at the expense of the other end 
in the sense that the other end would have more if it had its just deserts. The 
accumulation, in other words, is not a reward of service performed by those who 
hold wealth, but a sort of confiscation of goods, which in justice are felt to 
belong to the lower end. If the accumulation is a reward for service performed, 
nobody suffers; since as much has been given as is accumulated in wealth. The 
direct inference, therefore, is that wealth is gotten and nothing given in 
return for it, and the query naturally presents itself to the mind how it all 
comes about, and what it is which enables any individual, not to say any 
numerous social class, to get and retain possession of the community's wealth 
without giving any equivalent for it. What is it that impels society to deliver 
over into the hands of a select few the management of its industries and the 
disposition of its wealth? Nothing at all! This, it is implied, society does. 
Without any intention "to depreciate" the economic function of the propertied 
class, or of the "captains of industry," we are told that "their office is of a 
parasitic character, and their interest is to divert what substance they may to 
their own use, and to retain whatever is under their hand. The conventions of 
the business world have grown up under the selective surveillance of this 
principle of predation and parasitism. They are conventions of ownership, 
derivatives, more or less remote, of the ancient predatory "culture."
Passing over the absolutely irreconcilable introductory observation that all 
this is not deprecatory, what, it may be asked, is the vital principle back of 
this "parasitism" which enables it to survive and resist all efforts of society 
to be rid of it ? No other answer is conceivable than that it is the same 
impelling circumstance that forces society in general to pay for what it gets; 
to pay wages for labor which it exacts. The laborer is a parasite, too, since he 
withdraws from society's store of goods and devotes to his own personal 
consumption the amount of his wages - high or [441] low. The wages of the 
"captains of industry" are high, and if it be asked why are they high, the 
answer lies in the obvious fact that society pays these high wages for the same 
reason that it pays any wages at all. It pays them in order to secure services 
which it obtains in return. It pays the least which it can pay and still secure 
those services, and there is no more reason for believing the services are not 
worth the wages paid than there is for thinking any labor is not worth the hire 
which it earns. There is the same reason for thinking the bank president or the 
" financier," or the "captain of industry" really earns his $25,000 a year, as 
there is for thinking the man who digs in the street earns his $1.50 a day. The 
reason for thinking so in either case is that society pays the wage.
Accumulated wealth is, therefore, accumulated earnings, not accumulated 
confiscations; of the earnings of others. On the contrary, the rise in wages 
during the last quarter century is to a very considerable extent, if not 
altogether, due to the confiscation by the community in general of the increment 
to production and labor efficiency which has resulted from improvements, 
inventions, and the industrial genius of a few; and, it may be added, that the 
efficiency of labor in all times - more particularly its efficiency today - 
depends entirely upon the efficiency and genius of the industrial captain, who 
comes to be in the natural course of events associated with the wealth holders 
in the community. Even if he transmits his earnings to unthrifty children, 
society does not lose anything which it ever possessed. It simply does not get 
possession of something to which the inheritors seem to have a less clear title 
than the father had.
There is one other attitude of mind which appears to pervade the entire 
discussion of the Theory of the Leisure Class. It is consistently assumed 
throughout the discussion that the conditions of human environment are 
constantly changing, and that social evolution consists in social adjustment to 
this changing environment. We are told, for example, that "men tend to revert or 
breed true, more or less closely, to one or another of certain types of human 
nature that have in their main features been [442] fixed in approximate 
conformity to a situation in the past which differed from the situation of 
today." Again, it is stated that the ethnic types which constitute societies in 
occidental populations are "variants of the primitive racial types. They have 
suffered some alteration, and have attaind some degree of fixity in their 
altered form under the discipline of the barbarian culture."
The contention is that under a protracted period of barbarism primitive races of 
man underwent a process of selection and adaptation to their environment; that 
that environment has changed, leaving the present ethnic types which go to make 
up civilized communities not perfectly adjusted to their new environment. This 
histrionic conception of evolution, which conceives it to take place in stages, 
is apt to mislead. The inference which seems warranted from the above quotation 
is that man succeeded in adjusting himself to barbarian conditions of life, and 
that a change in those conditions threw that adjustment out. Now many of the 
conditions in man's environment me practically fixed. Climate and soil make up 
pretty much all there is at the basis of that environment, and these change but 
little. Man's effort to adjust himself to his environment might be more 
correctly stated to be his effort under the impelling force of the "instinct of 
workmanship," to get all he can out of his environment. The barbarian extracted 
less out of this relatively fixed environment than his culturally more advanced 
descendants, and for that reason his "culture" yielded to a culture economically 
more efficient. The word culture itself suggests the character of social 
evolution. It is a change not of environment, but of "culture;" that is, of the 
method of working the environment. There is no point at which barbaric culture 
leaves off and another culture begins. Every generation receives the cultural 
methods of the immediately preceding generation, and modifies them into 
completer harmony with an unchanging but indefinitely complex environment.
The economic development of today is, in so far as it differs from earlier 
economic conditions, a new culture of the environment gradually evolved by 
society, because it is a more efficient [443] culture than those gradually 
displaced. Those adopting the new culture have benefited by its greater 
efficiency, and have worsted those clinging to less efficient methods, who are 
bound to lose prestige and Position as industrial leaders. The possession of 
wealth has become an evidence of economic efficiency and facility in 
apprehension and adoption of more productive exploitation of labor and 
environment.
Such considerations as these are directly counter to much of the philosophy 
elaborated in the Theory of the leisure Class, where it is repeatedly asserted 
that "the tendency of the pecuniary life [i. e., of the life led by the holders 
of wealth who are engaged in operations which involve acquisition and ownership, 
not the production of wealth] is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian 
temperament, but with the substitution of fraud and prudence, or administrative 
ability [here apparently used as a synonymous term comprehending both "fraud" 
and "prudence"] in the place of that predilection for physical damage that 
characterizes the early barbarian. This substitution of chicane in place of 
devastation takes place only in an uncertain degree. ..."
"The aristocratic and the bourgeois virtues - that is to say, the destructive 
and pecuniary traits - should be found chiefly among the upper classes, and the 
industrial virtues - that is to say, the peaceable traits - chiefly among the 
classes given to mechanical industry." "Pecuniary efficiency "-that is, 
efficiency for acquiring and holding wealth - is stated to be "incompatible with 
industrial efficiency," and the "economic man" to be "useless for purposes of 
modern industry" because he is "self-regarding" and "prudent."
The underlying assumption upon which the exposition rests, is the assumption 
that the acquisition of wealth is a "predatory" and not an industrial process; 
that property is "booty," not product. As no line of argument leads up to this 
conclusion, no refutation is called for of an assumption so obviously 
inconsistent with the facts. Wealth is the product of industry, apportioned 
among the agents of its production, as nearly as may be in proportion to the 
value of services by them severally [444] executed. The covert arraignment of 
social institutions implied in the above characterization and in such assertions 
as constantly recur - assertions, for example, that the "pecuniary" aptitude, 
that is to say, the aptitude for acquiring and holding wealth, "may be called 
the invidious or self-regarding," while the "industrial" aptitude, which must 
mean something else than industrial efficiency as ordinarily conceived, and 
something very like technical skill, is "non-invidious and economical" - is 
certainly unjustified by the argument set forth in the Theory of the Leisure 
Class, and is a distinction which cannot be maintained in fact.
It is not to be supposed, however, that the above statement is anything more 
than a bare outline of the theory developed, which indeed, is so elaborately 
modified as to leave the reader in some doubt as to real intent of the author. 
These modifications go to the extent of asserting even that "there is at present 
no broad distinction in this respect [i. e., in respect to the "barbarian 
temperament" and "pecuniary traits" of character] between the leisure-class 
character and the character of the common run of the population." If this be 
true what becomes, it may be asked, of those nice distinctions and analyses 
already adverted to? Does the fact that they are not true make them any the less 
dangerous for propagandic purposes?
It is urged that the similarity of temperament between the upper and lower 
classes is "in large part due to the prescriptive example of the leisure class 
and to the popular acceptance of those broad principles of conspicuous waste and 
pecuniary emulation on which the institution of a leisure class rests. The 
institution acts to lower the industrial efficiency of the community and retard 
the adaptation of human nature to the exigencies of modern industrial life." But 
the assumption that the temperament of the lower classes is prescribed by the 
upper class, if warranted at all, is true only in the sense that the community 
as a whole is disposed to follow the example of its more efficient and 
successful members in achieving economic ends; this is the sort of 
"prescription" which is set up by every example of excellence.
[445] Attention has already been directed to the unreal character of the 
distinction implied in the employment of such terms as "industrial" and 
"pecuniary " to characterize the functions respectively of the lower and of the 
leisure classes. This distinction is clearly insinuated in such statements as 
the following: "The leisure class lives by the industrial community rather than 
in it. Its relations to industry are of a pecuniary rather than of an industrial 
kind. Admission to the class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes - 
aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability." The leisure class is 
set over against the "lower classes whose ordinary means of acquiring goods is 
productive labor," as the class engaged in the "game of ownership," and the 
origin of the leisure class is associated with the beginnings of ownership and 
the institution of private property. "In the sequence of cultural evolution," we 
are told, "the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the beginnings of 
ownership. This is necessarily so, for these two institutions result from the 
same set of economic forces. In the inchoate phase of the development they are 
but different aspects of the same general facts of social structure. ... The 
early differentiation out of which the distinction between a leisure and a 
working class arises is a division maintained between men's and women's work in 
the lower stages of barbarism. Likewise the earliest form of ownership is an 
ownership of the women by the able-bodied men of the community .... of the woman 
by the man."
From its first emergence in the cultural scale the leisure class has occupied 
itself with ownership of property and "exploit." Ownership of property and 
exploitation of the non-propertied classes constitute its social function. 
Originally this exploitation took the form of physical dominance and chattel 
slavery, depending upon the physical ableness of body, upon that prowess and 
ferocity which go to make the successful hunter and warrior. The methods of 
acquiring goods during this primitive period called for the exercise of those 
qualities which were then of real economic service - the hunter supplied the 
community with food and the warrior with slaves and other property. But with the 
[446] cessation of war and the institution of more peaceful methods of producing 
wealth, these qualities of ferocity and prowess lost their economic worth; they 
were no longer of economic service - not of service, that is, to the community 
as a whole, although with some slight modification in character, these qualities 
still enable the leisure class to get on in the "game of ownership." That the 
"game of ownership," thus get over against "productive labor," is not a chance 
epigram, is sufficiently evidenced in the several passages quoted above. The 
theory of the leisure class is a theory of "acquisition" and exploit, of the 
class not engaged in productive labor. "Property," we are told, "set out with 
being booty held as trophies of the successful raid. ... With the cultural 
advance it became more and more a trophy of successes scored in the gam e of 
ownership carried on between members of the group under quasi peaceable methods 
of nomadic life."
The accuracy of this epigram as applied to the leisure class, or rather to the 
class of wealth holders cannot be denied. As a class and individually, obviously 
they are engaged in the "game of ownership." But are they peculiar in this 
respect, and to be so differentiated from the rest of the community?
Let us see whether the author's own psychological generalizations in his chapter 
an Pecuniary Emulation warrant the conclusions which his argument here seems to 
require. He is speaking of men in general, of whom he observes that with a few 
"apparent exceptions" which are "scarcely real exceptions," "the end sought by 
accumulation is to rank high in comparison with the rest of the community in 
point of pecuniary strength. So long as the comparison is distinctly unfavorable 
to himself, the normal, average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction 
with his present lot, and when he has reached what may be called the normal 
pecuniary standard of the community, or of his class in the community, this 
chronic dissatisfaction will give place to a restless straining to place a wider 
and ever-widening pecuniary interval between himself and this average standard."
There can be no question about Dr. Veblen's own views as here [447] expressed; 
and we are bound to ask if these statements are reconcilable with that which 
attempts to divide off the leisure class as the class in the community which is 
engaged in the game of ownership. It will perhaps be urged that, while all 
classes are disposed enough to enter into the game, only a few possess the 
requisite means of doing so, and that these few are so enabled to conduct the 
game, on such advantageous terms - to themselves - as to force out all others. 
But in what sense are the great majority out of the game? And being so out of 
the game, how does it happen that they are each and all, with a few pathological 
exceptions, according to the theory of the leisure class "straining to place a 
wider and ever-widening pecuniary interval" between themselves and their 
fellows? Obviously this "straining" is only a euphemism for "playing the game." 
The leisure class "play the game of ownership" while the rest of the community 
individually "strain to place a wider and ever-widening pecuniary interval 
between themselves and their standard." There is only one way to place an ever-
widening pecuniary interval between one's self and one's fellows, and that is by 
the acquisition and ownership of property. And the two statements, taken in 
conjunction, if they have any economic significance at all, must mean not that 
the leisure class is peculiar in the character of the economic ends which it 
seeks to achieve, nor in the nature of its occupation, but is peculiar in a very 
different sense from that. It is peculiar in that in playing this game of 
ownership in which all engage, its members have succeed conspicuously.
This modification is an important one. The leisure class can no longer be 
conceived to differ from the community "by which" its members live, in its 
spiritual disposition or character, not, at least, so far as these qualities are 
indicated in the motives inducing economic performance. The differentiation now 
tests upon success in achieving what all "strain" to achieve.
It will be well to call attention to the employment in this connection of the 
word "game," and to ask what it is that gives to it its peculiar piquancy when 
applied to the occupation [448] of the wealthy leisure class. This piquancy will 
be found to lie in the suggestion of fortuitous chance which the word carries. 
It would seem to make success for the leisure class dependent in an especial 
sense upon chance, while the "lower classes" engage in "productive labor" 
wherein the element of chance does not enter.
If by this element of chance it were intended to designate the greater risks run 
by the leisure-class players, as contrasted with productive laborers, the 
employment of the term might be justified. But such is clearly not the writer's 
intention. In speaking of the "game of ownership" the element of chance connoted 
is that soft of chance which the gambler takes - it is a game of chance, not of 
skill, this game of ownership, and the risks assumed are devoid of economic 
significance. The leisure class gentleman and the lower class delinquent have 
this in common that they are both gamesters. "The leisure class and the 
delinquent-class character" we are told, "shows a persistence into adult life of 
traits that are normal to childhood and youth, and that are likewise normal or 
habitual to the earlier stages of culture. ... The traits that distinguish the 
swaggering delinquent and the punctilious gentleman of leisure from the common 
crowd are, in some measure, marks of an arrested spiritual development. They 
mark an immature phase, as compared with the stage of development attained by 
the average of the adults in the modern industrial community." Consistently with 
this exception of the wealthy leisure-class gentleman, it is urged that success 
in the game which he plays devolves much upon "chicanery," "fraud," 
"shrewdness," "unscrupulousness," and "dishonesty."
Here, again, the complete sophistry of the argument lies in the grain of truth 
which it curies - in the implication that since individual members of the 
wealthy leisure class resort to chicanery and fraud, therefore, nobody else 
does! Since individuals have accumulated wealth by means of fraud, and so 
entered the leisure class, wealth possessed by that class represents as a whole 
fraud, the confiscated product of the industrious pan of the community.
[449] Of course the obvious criticism here, again, is that while all these 
qualities of unscrupulousness and chicanery do count in the "game," there is no 
evidence which permits one to identify the wealthy leisure class with the 
unscrupulous class whose means of prospering is chicanery - any more than there 
is reason in the implication that the leisure class includes off those who are 
interested in the game of ownership. The unscrupulous man is not, by virtue of 
his unscrupulousness, a member of any class.
With these comments on the attempted differentiation of the wealthy leisure 
class, let us come to the fundamental distinction drawn between "productive 
labor " and playing the "game of ownership," which latter occupation takes the 
more concrete form of "financiering" and directing industry. The direct 
implication here is that the labor of the lower classes is productive of wealth, 
while that of the "captains of industry" is competitive predation, a sort of 
gambling with the confiscated products of the "productive" laborers. If it be 
asked what it is in the character of the services rendered which seems to 
warrant the epithets "gaming" and "unproductive," it will be found to lie in two 
qualities, both of them of vital economic utility, which are more or less 
clearly indicated in the terms executive ability and foresight, respectively - 
the ability to manage and to foresee. In the terminology of the leisure class 
these become qualities of "predation" and "cunning," the one "unproductive," the 
other "gaming."
It is not difficult to see how the popular impression arises; that the labor of 
management and pre-vision is unproductive, since the tangible commodities which 
go to make up the sum total of the community's wealth take form, are literally 
produced in the hands of manual laborers The shoe manufacturer does not handle a 
pair of shoes, has no knowledge of the technical processes which would enable 
him to "produce " a single pair, ergo, how can his labor be called productive?
In the very same sense, it must be answered, that any labor at all is 
productive, namely, that it results in the production of [450] something which 
would not have been produced without it, in this case, of shoes. Productive or 
unproductive, the labor which the manufacturer performs is exactly the same sort 
of labor that is performed by every workman in his factory, only it is of a 
higher order; that is to say, it is economically more productive, in the sense 
that it results in more tangible commodities being turned out than does the 
labor of the ordinary workman. The labor of every workman employed in his 
factory is labor - rather than an epileptic fit or a spasm - exactly because it 
is intelligently trained to the accomplishment of a selected end, to wit, the 
production of a shoe. If we single out the intelligence which directs the labor, 
and say of it that it is unproductive, we have left as "productive" labor only 
such involuntary spasmodic reactions as can result in the accomplishment of no 
teleologically selected end whatever; but, if labor is productive because it is 
intelligently directed, and if, not the hand of the workman alone, but that bond 
directed by his individual intelligence - in other words, the workman himself as 
a man, not the hand as a hand - labors productively, then that intelligence 
which directs the workman in the exertion of his intelligence is in a higher 
sense still a productive intelligence, and the individual exerting it in a 
higher sense a productive laborer. The possession of wealth is the possession of 
power - not always to consume the wealth, but always to direct the investment of 
labor. Upon the wise exercise of this power depends the material prosperity of 
the community, and the penalty for inefficient misdirection is loss of all 
economic power whatever. Clearly, therefore, the distinction between productive 
labor and labor which directs and financiers, cannot be maintained, since no 
labor is more productive in any sense than that which directs other labor - in 
leisure class terminology, "exploit" it - to the achievement of economic ends. 
All labor is in the last analysis teleologically directed physical energy. The 
quality of "productiveness" depends altogether upon the intelligence back of it, 
and this whether that directing intelligence lie within the workman himself, or 
in some "captain of industry."
[451] Exercise of the quality of foresight more especially than that of 
executive ability alone, gives rise to the impression that those who exercise it 
are engaged in a game of chance. Here too, a grain of truth carries weight and 
gives piquancy to a line of reasoning which is mainly sophistical. The 
financier, the captain of industry, the man of wealth, do engage in a game in 
which they take risks, venture stakes, and compete with one another, in the 
effort to win; but the game in which they are conspicuous players is one in 
which society as a whole wins or loses with them. Success in this game depends, 
in a large measure, upon the exercise of foresight which enables one to 
correlate present action with a future more or less remote. This future is a 
purely fictitious one, constructed out of present conditions - a perspective of 
present conditions and tendencies, upon the correct analysis of which accuracy 
in any special case depends. The ability correctly to analyze constitutes the 
quality of foresight. Where the motive to any given line of action is obscured 
to the ordinary observer by the complexity of conditions, the action appears to 
him to be taken arbitrarily. The man who carries his analysis of present 
conditions farthest, appears to those who carry their analysis less far to be a 
gambler, since the motives which actuate him lie without the ken of those whose 
sense of events is less keenly developed.
For a half century it has been the intent of socialism to reduce wealth to terms 
of labor measured in time, to deny the service of the wealthy class of 
industrial captains, altogether. In Marxism philosophy the capitalist is a 
"robber," and this terminology seems quite consistent with that adopted - 
possibly without invidious intention - in the Theory of the Leisure Class, where 
the "captain of industry" is made out to be a man in whom predatory instincts 
have survived and developed. The quintessence of such socialism is clear - labor 
alone produces; ergo, to labor alone the product belongs. But the truth is labor 
alone does not produce. The obvious inference is that since it does not it 
cannot, and if labor cannot produce alone, that something required to make it 
productive should have - at [452] least it can legitimately demand and take - 
its reward, even as it does.
This something for which society pays such a high price is the direction and 
management of industrial processes, and the keenness of industrial competition 
gives the only assurance society can have that this function comes in the long 
run to devolve upon those most competent to exercise it. In the industrial 
hierarchy executive ability dominates technical skill, which in turn dominates 
physical strength and endurance. Every quality having an economic bearing has 
its economic value as accurately determined as way be in its earning efficiency. 
The ability to direct, to solve concrete problems, and to understand the 
requirements of conditions commands a high wage in the industrial labor market, 
because it is rare and because upon it depends the success or failure of any 
undertaking, the payment of wages, and the preservation of wealth itself. As the 
organization of industry becomes more complex, and the necessity for correctly 
forecasting the future more urgent, and withal more difficult, such ability 
comes to command a higher premium in the open market.
The author's line of argument with regard to the ownership of property and the 
institution of a leisure class may be briefly resumed as follows: The inceptive 
to accumulate wealth was the invidious character of the distinction which its 
possession conferred, and this invidious character arose from the fact that such 
possession under the "predatory culture" was an insignia of "ferocity" and 
"cunning," of success in war and in the chase. Under the conditions imposed by 
the predatory habit of life these qualities were of real economic serviceability 
to the community. Under modern industrial methods they have lost their 
serviceability. The possession of wealth, however, still remains an insignia of 
the predatory traits of character. It is not, then, in its insistence upon the 
invidiousness of the distinction conferred by wealth, but in its insistence upon 
this archaic, uneconomic basis upon which the invidious character is made to 
rest, that the highly original feature of the theory of the leisure class lies. 
If the ownership of wealth is an insignia today [453] of real economic 
efficiency and service, its invidious character rests upon real merit, not upon 
an archaic, uneconomic inheritance, and the "invidious distinction" becomes a 
just award of honor. The argument reduces itself to the simple statement that 
there is honor attaching to the possession of wealth, owing to inherited 
predatory habits of thought in the worshipers, although the private ownership of 
wealth does not confer any economic good upon the community, nor signify traits 
of character in the possessors which are economically beneficial at the present 
time. These traits were of economic efficiency under barbarian culture of 
predation, since they insured success in war and in the exploitation of peoples 
subjugated.
The above is necessarily an incomplete and unconvincing summary, which does not 
recite the evidence brought forward nor go into any full detail of analysis. It 
is, however sufficiently detailed to make clear the obvious inconsistency 
running through the whole train of reasoning, which makes the acquisition and 
possession of wealth dependent upon qualities of character which are 
economically inefficient. Simply stated, the argument runs that the man who 
cannot produce wealth acquires and keeps it, and we are not told how this 
miracle is performed. The explanation, of course, is that the miracle is not 
performed.
So far as possible in the present paper the terminology employed in the Theory 
of the Leisure Class has been retained, and this is quite essential, since the 
author seems to rely upon his selection of epithets - such epithets as 
"invidious," "predatory," "atavistic," "arrested" (development), "barbarian," 
"savage," "archaic," "ferocious," "astute" - to convey his own attitude of mind, 
and often covertly to convey the really essential point of his argument. All 
these epithets are in themselves deprecatory, and the oft-repeated declaration 
that they are not intended to be so, carries little weight. The distinction 
which wealth confers is "invidious" or "honorific;" the character of the wealthy 
class "predatory " and "ferocious" where it is energetic, and its charity and 
humanitarianism is "atavistic." due to "arrested development," or "reversion" to 
[454] the pre-predatory, quasi-peaceable, savage type of character; its success 
in accumulating wealth is due to qualities developed under predatory barbarism, 
not to economic efficiency; its conservatism is "archaic;" its ability, 
"astuteness," "fraud," "unscrupulousness," "cunning."
It would be entirely unfair to the author of the Theory of the Leisure Class to 
accept these epithets with their usual connotation, since they seem not to be so 
used here. The author is clearly an apologist in his employment of invectives, 
and, as has been already observed, not infrequently insists that he has no 
intention to deprecate. But disregard of the ordinary significance of words used 
is nevertheless carried so far as to suggest a lack of frankness - an attitude 
of mind, rather than a clear expression of opinion.
Such a use of terms is misleading, if the writer sincerely does not wish to 
convey moral or aesthetic judgments. The terminology of moral philosophy cannot 
fail to carry moral connotations of ethical judgment, and the use of obviously 
ethical terms without any declared ethical significance suggests a sophistry 
which amounts almost to duplicity. No one has a right to employ ethical 
terminology, or terms conveying in themselves moral or aesthetic judgments, as 
though no such judgments were necessarily involved in their selection. A simple 
denial of all such intent, especially when the denial follows long disquisitions 
wherein there is a consistent selection of invidious epithets, cannot efface 
these connoted judgments from the mind of the reader; while the consistency 
characterizing the selection of the epithets argues a conscious purpose on the 
part of the author to convey exactly those judgments which are so perfunctorily 
denied. All scientific writing suffers from these undefined - even indefinable - 
connoted significations in its terminology, and it is essential to accuracy and 
clearness to put the reader on guard by careful definition of the sense in which 
each term is employed. The reader cannot easily correct the pervading psychic 
influence of common ethical terms and reconstruct a "morally colorless" 
definition of them.
[455] It might seem ungracious and unwarrantable to dwell at such length upon a 
matter of terminology if the author of the Theory of the Leisure Class; had not 
displayed such consummate cleverness in a consistent selection of epithets 
conveying in themselves covertly, but none the less really, an ethical damnation 
of social institutions which cannot be disregarded. The denials of intent to 
express ethical judgments - which no less consistently follow the employment of 
ethical terms - may ward off criticism, but they do not correct the impression 
created nor conduce to clearness of exposition. Such consistent inconsistency is 
at least bewildering. If there were less consummate cleverness displayed, one 
would feel less disposed to criticise. It is the cleverness itself, the 
sophistry consistently maintained that bears witness to a more or less conscious 
intent on the part of the author, and itself elicits criticism. The author of 
the Theory of the Leisure Class is clearly a master of sophistical dialectic.
JOHN CUMMINGS.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.