Review of Veblen's "Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution",

The Nation, (New York), Vol. 101, No. 2618, (Sep., 2, 1915), p. 292.
['article: German Industrialism'].
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[292]
GERMAN INDUSTRIALISM.

Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution
By Thorstein Veblen. New York: The Macmillan Co. $1.50.

Readers acquainted with Professor Veblen's books on “The Leisure Class” and “The 
Instinct of Workmanship” will End the qualities of those stimulating works in 
his latest writing. The author is both economist and sociologist, and he is both 
at the same time; he does not pass from one field to the other, but makes the 
two fields one. An economic fact suggests to him a moral reflection, and a 
social institution is to him a problem in economic valuation. This attitude is a 
sufficient departure from the usual academic habit to give zest to all that he 
writes, and to make his work original and suggestive even when it, is not 
conclusive. It is an attitude well adapted to a discussion of the topic in hand, 
which is an explanation of German industrial efficiency by reference to social 
facts and principles.

The author begins his study the stone age of the Baltic peoples, But he 
confesses that his problem has to do with the recent rather than with the 
distant past, and his early chapters add little to the strength of his argument. 
Comparing the German with the English system, he is particularly impressed by 
the advantages which a people obtains by borrowing the technical arts rather by 
developing them as a native growth. The English people, he thinks, made their 
industrial progress, in the period succeeding the reign of Elizabeth, at the 
expense of their old and political institutions. The principles of self-help and 
equality of opportunity dissolved old authorities in law, government, and 
religion. Insubordination grew, and loyalty declined. The materialistic logic of 
business infected all English thought. The English industrial system, 
furthermore, developed in its growth a fringe of customs and conventions that 
were natural products of the time, but were actual hindrances to economic 
efficiency. Such were abuses in the competition of trade, leading to 
irregularities and loss, and breeding up a race of “depauperate” workmen, almost 
irremediably damaged in physique. Such were the of consumption, imposing 
“conspicuous waste” as the signal mark of social propriety. Extravagance and 
useless harmful sport became national institutions.

There were but the accidents of industrial progress England, and from then the 
German people was spared while it was procuring political rehabilitation under 
the dynastic power of the Prussian state. The people retained habits of mind 
suited to the maintenance of a coercive, centralized, and irresponsible 
political control. They were confirmed in the frugal habits of a simple economic 
organization. Finally, when the time was ripe, still under the strict guidance 
of political authority, they assimilated rapidly the effective parts of the 
English industrial system, and took their place among the leading peoples, 
unique their combination of qualities of the old time and the new. The “new 
technology brought with it virtually none of its inherent drawbacks, in the way 
of conventional waste, obsolescent usage, and equipment, class animosities; and 
as it has been brought into full bearing within an unexampled short time, none 
of these drawbacks handicaps have yet had time to grow to formidable dimensions. 
... Carrying over a traditional bias of Romantic loyalty, infused anew with a 
militant patriotism by several successful wars, and irritably conscious of 
national power in their new-found economic efficiency, the feudalistic spirit of 
the population has yet suffered little if any abatement from their brief 
experience as a modern industrial community.”

The author ranges into all parts of national life in his endeavor to appreciate 
modern German "Kultur." As often as not he fails to command the assent of the 
cautious reader, but to his credit it must be said that his assertions are fair 
scientific hypotheses. His forecast, that the Imperial German state is “unable 
to get along without the machine Industry, and also, in the long unable to get 
along with it,” appears perfectly reasonable; and most American readers will 
agree with his conclusion that, whether the German state wins loses its present 
struggle, the cause of Western civilization will suffer from its activities.
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