Review of Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class,
by Samuel McCune Lindsay (Philadelphia)

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Philadelphia: American Academy of Political, and Social Science, 1900.
VOL. XV (Jan., 1900- May, 1900)

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Vol. 15, April 1900, pp. 282-285
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[282]
The Theory of the Leisure Class. An economic study in the evolution of 
institutions. By Thorstein Veblen. Pp. viii, 400. Price, $2.00. New York: The 
Macmillan Co., 1899.

Much of the recent trend of events in the social sciences indicates a 
widespread interest in the examination of the bearing of the economic 
principle upon social life and institutions. This principle has been stated 
clearly by John Stuart Mill in the ninth chapter of Book VI of his "Logic," 
as the psychological law that a greater gain is preferred to a smaller. 
Political economists, as a rule, make use of the principle only in its 
narrower aspects as "self-interest," but so varied are its broader 
applications in sociology and history that it fascinates many synthetic 
thinkers in various branches of knowledge.

Professor Veblen assumes without comment the validity and sufficiency of the 
economic principle throughout his work, and Mr. Payne announces it in the 
preface to his first volume, published in 1892, as something altogether new 
upon which he has stumbled accidentally in his search for a rational 
explanation of civilization, and in the use of which he has some misgivings. 
In the second volume, published seven years later, the mistaken newness has 
worn off and Mr. Payne makes good use of the economic attitude throughout his 
work.

Professor Veblen's field of inquiry is much more limited than one would at 
first sight suppose from his general and somewhat peculiar terminology and 
from an enumeration of the topics treated. He seeks to explain the effect of 
beliefs, tradition, institutions and social standards upon the industrial 
serviceability of the individual or group of individuals considered only as 
producers or consumers of material wealth. 

The Leisure Class is made up of those engaged in worthy employments, which 
means those having the element of exploit. Furthermore, the class is non-
industrial, in that its exploitation is one of human beings and has not for 
its ultimate purpose only the utilization [283] of non-human things. This 
class begins by appropriating things, and its history is one progressive 
drill in exploitation, appropriation and administration of appropriated 
goods. Women in primitive times are appropriated as trophies, and therefore 
the chief thing Mr. Veblen sees in his economic analysis of the function of 
woman in present society is the fact that she is still in a sense a trophy, 
an index of man's power and prowess, engaged in conspicuous, wasteful and 
vicarious consumption of goods, because in this way man can show most readily 
the extent of his economic resources. Woman is made to wear corsets as a 
final proof that she is not intended to do useful work.

The underlying motive in ownership is emulation. It has nothing to do with 
the needs of subsistence, but from the motives of pecuniary emulation 
property is, first and last, booty, regarded as a trophy and exhibited 
(consumed) in ways to bring out the power and prowess of the owner. Thus 
there arise secondary demands of emulation, which require abstention from 
productive work, because labor is evidence of inferior force. At least the 
exemption must be from all useful employment. "Time is consumed [by the 
leisure class] non-productively (i) from a sense of the unworthiness of 
productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life 
of idleness." This is what Dr. Veblen calls "conspicuous leisure," and is 
supposed to explain on the basis of primitive distinctions, under the 
conditions of primitive society, the industrial value of the efforts and 
labors of the propertied classes in modern society. Much more in the same 
spirit could be cited if there were space to review the chapters on 
"conspicuous consumption," "the pecuniary standard of living" and "the 
pecuniary canons of taste."

Enough, however, has been said to point out Professor Veblen's chief error in 
method. He takes his data largely from the disputable facts of primitive 
society without even sufficient evidence that he has made good use of the 
best material so far as it goes, and he then assumes that having explained 
the origin of an institution he has explained its underlying motives and 
tendencies as it exists in modern society. Thus by a series of long-range 
deductions from the facts of primitive society, even assuming, for the sake 
of argument, that the facts are correct as stated, he explains the mechanism 
of many modern institutions in a way not justified by a direct economic 
analysis of the motives and tendencies of which the individuals in modern 
society who are re-creating and working in and through the same classes of 
institutions are conscious. By way of illustration Professor Veblen might say 
correctly that clothes originated in the desire for ornament at a time when 
they did not represent and real need for defence or [284] protection from 
climatic conditions. To conclude, however, that the desire for ornament is 
the chief desire in modern man's consumption of clothes would be to ignore 
the change in the nature of modern man, who, through the peculiar conditions 
of his heredity, finds clothes a requisite of existence, no longer being able 
in temperate climates to go without them. Hence the adaptation of clothes to 
his need of warmth, the demands of health and the adjustment of clothes to 
present activities become dominant factors even in ladies' clothing, factors 
revealed only by a direct analysis of present economic factors and not 
revealed at all by Professor Veblen's long-range methods.

Professor Veblen's errors are not all of the class that could be attributed 
to the error in method referred to.

Thus again to meet Dr. Veblen on his own ground, I may illustrate from what 
he says of the results of the animistic habit of thought (p. 287). In its 
effect on the believer, and in general what he says here reflects the spirit 
of his anal)-sis of all religious belief whether classed as animistic or not, 
the result is a lowering of his effective intelligence in the respect in 
which intelligence is of especial consequence for modem industry. Just the 
opposite result is what we would expect from all a priori considerations, and 
indeed is what exact observation verifies. No doubt the spiritual outlook on 
the animistic and anthropomorphic plane is relatively a lower one than that 
possessed by believers in cults that have intellectually refined the 
animistic element. Take, however, the crudest forms of animistic cults in 
modern society in their effect upon their believers and contrast the latter 
with individuals in the same general class and stage of economy with respect 
to industrial efficiency: this is the problem posited by Professor Veblen if 
I understand him. Any psychologist will say that the believer is more 
industrious because he believes that he can do more by virtue of supernatural 
aid than an outside intelligent judgment of his powers would be willing to 
predict. He does accomplish more because he believes he can and therefore 
succeeds in approaching nearer the maximum limit of his real powers than he 
who does not share this belief. Furthermore the believer in animistic cults 
usually manifests a higher feeling of responsibility (i) to some higher being 
and (2) to his family or to other individuals and classes in society, and 
this feeling operates directly as an industrial motive producing industrial 
results. Perhaps no better illustration of what may be an absurdly 
anthropomorphic representation of spiritual forces but none the less an 
industrially effective one is revealed in the remark of the small boy who 
told his mother to go away because it was bad enough to have God watching him 
all the time.

[285] Conspicuosity; invidious rivalry and imitation; social values measured 
by waste; social position determined by proficiency in chicanery, in 
conspicuous uselessness and in predatory instincts; social forces, the 
survivals of barbarian culture; these are the general conclusions reached. 
What has become of the first principles of evolution if a social order 
survives on that which has destroyed the social order it has displaced? What 
new elements have entered into the world-struggle to modify these relics of 
barbarian civilization? Is it not these new elements that are the essential 
factors in any such discussion as that projected by Professor Veblen, yet of 
them he has nothing to say.

It is safe to say that this is an almost untouched field of investigation for 
the political economist. Indeed the sociologist who must attack the same 
problems first in their more immediate effects upon the personality of 
individuals and upon the origin, structure, growth and permanency of social 
institutions has scarcely as yet attempted an analysis of the available 
material for such studies. Until sociology has made a more thorough study of 
social survivals it would seem a priori to be impossible to make with success 
any such cross section investigation or comparison of results within the 
narrower field of the phenomena of industrial activity of what implies a co-
ordination of the results of the two parallel social sciences of sociology 
and political economy. Dr. Veblen's book is sufficient proof of the 
hopelessness of the task as he conceives it, in the present stage of the 
social sciences. He has given us some interesting reading viewed as a cynical 
comment on modern life, and has made some contribution to the study of social 
survivals, but the title of his book is a misnomer, because it is not a 
satisfactory theory of the leisure class.

Samuel, McCune Lindsay.
University of Pennsylvania.
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