The Criterion, (Mar., 25, 1899), No. 479, pp. 26-27.
Book Review by: Stephen MacKenna.
Article: The Luxury of Lazihead
'The Theory of the Leisure Class. An Economic Study in the Evolution of 
Institutions'. By THORSTEIN VEBLEN. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1899).
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The Luxury of Lazihead.
The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen (Macmillan Company), called 
by way of sub-title, An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions, is a 
book unique in its kind. It is an elaborate scientific treatise, marching by a 
very distinct method to a very clearly pre-defined end, yet lively reading on 
nearly every page, full of shrewd observation such as, given a slightly 
different form and an entirely different setting, would make the literary 
fortune of a novelist. There is humor in the book, too, and an amazing power of 
seeing in common things all kinds of profound relations, meanings, symbolisms. A 
book which is valuable, both for its theory - of which it would not be fair to 
attempt a reckoning in a cursive review - and for the fascinating materials 
grouped with admirable skill and with most plausible effect round the central 
idea. A book, too, which is immensely educative: no one could take it up and 
even dip into it casually here and there without feeling a distinct freshening 
of interest in the deeper signification of the most commonplace principles, 
habits, venerations and dislikes of every-day existence. At every step one is 
flung back from the present, as by a catapult, into the most distant past. One 
gets a new sense of the depth of the daily things; a new feeling for the mystery 
of the ways of men; a keener perception of the oneness of mankind through all 
the variations of all the centuries. And all this in the easiest, most casual 
way: it is an illustration from the cavaliers riding, escort to dames, in 
Central Park, that sends you back to the noble knighthoods of the feudal ages, 
back again to the tribal days when man fought for woman as for the source of the 
tribal greatness and power over other and hostile tribes, back of that again to 
the remote ages when man fought for the woman as for himself, feeling that he 
would be lonely and lost amid the vastness and terror of the universe if this 
part of himself, this partner of his fears, were to meet with harm. And so in 
various ways and from the commonest beginnings, the reader is always being 
brought face to face with the infinities - and always suavely, always without 
straining after eloquence or fine writing, by just a hint dropped, as it were, 
in the midst of a genial after-dinner chat.
It is not quite just to snap at readable excerpts from this book, since from its 
general method, its scientific march, meanings are very much modified or 
modulated by the context. But here is a passage which illustrates reasonably 
well the general style and tone of the writer.
"As seen from the economic point of view, leisure considered as an employment is 
closely allied in kind with the life of exploit; and the achievements which 
characterize a life of leisure and which remain as its decorous criteria, have 
much in common with the trophies of exploit. But leisure in the narrower sense, 
as distinct from exploit and from any ostensibly productive employment of effort 
on objects which are of no intrinsic use, does not commonly leave a material 
product. The criteria of a past performance of leisure, therefore, commonly take 
the form of 'immaterial' goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are 
quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes 
and incidents which do not conduce directly to the furtherance of human life. 
So, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge of the dead languages and 
the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of the various 
forms of domestic music and other household art; of the latest proprieties of 
dress, furniture and equipage; of games, sports and fancy-bred animals, such as 
dogs and race-horses. In all those branches of knowledge the initial motive from 
which their acquisition proceeded at the outset and through which they first 
came into vogue, may have been something quite different from the wish to show 
that one's time had not been spent in industrial employment; but unless these 
accomplishments had approved themselves as serviceable evidence of an 
unproductive expenditure of time, they would not have survived and held their 
place as conventional accomplishments of the leisure class."
A pleasant subacid under all this shrewdness: yet how calm, how well-bred, how 
entirely suave and easy.
Of manners we have this:
"It is worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial observances which 
are classed under the general head of manners holds a more important place in 
the esteem of men during the stage of culture at which conspicuous leisure has 
the greatest vogue as a mark of reputability than at later stages of the 
cultural development.... The decay which the code of manners has suffered at the 
hands of a busy people testifies - all deprecation apart - to the fact that 
decorum is a product and an exponent of leisure-class life and thrives in full 
measure only under a régime of status."
"The origin - or, better, the derivation - of manners is no doubt to be sought 
elsewhere than in a conscious effort on the part of the well-mannered to show 
that much time has been spent in acquiring them. ... The proximate end of 
innovation and elaboration has been the higher effectiveness of the new 
departure in point of beauty or expressiveness. In great part the ceremonial 
code of decorous usages owes its beginning and its growth to the desire to 
conciliate or to show good will.... and this initial motive is rarely, if ever, 
absent from the conduct of well-mannered persons at any stage of the later 
development. Manners.... are in part an elaboration of gesture, and in part they 
are symbolical and conventionalized survivals representing former acts of 
dominance or of personal service or of personal contest. In large part they are 
an expression of the relation of status - a symbolic pantomime of mastery on the 
one hand and of subservience on the other.... Their ulterior economic ground is 
to be sought in the honorific character of that leisure or nonproductive 
employment of time and effort, without which good manners are not acquired.... A 
knowledge of good form is prima facie evidence that that portion of the well-
bred person's life which is not spent under the observation of the spectator has 
been worthily spent in acquiring accomplishments that are of no lucrative 
effect."
"The Master's person, being the embodiment of worth and honor, is of the most 
serious consequence. Both for his reputable standing in the community and for 
his self-respect it is a matter of moment that he should have at his call 
efficient specialized servants, whose attendance upon his person is not diverted 
from this their chief office by any by-occupation. ... There results a 
constantly increasing differentiation and multiplication of domestic and body 
servants along with a concomitant progressive exemption of such servants from 
productive labor.... Men begin to be preferred above women for service that 
brings them obtrusively into view. Men, especially lusty, personable fellows, as 
footmen and other menials should be, are obviously more powerful and more 
expensive than women. They are better fitted for this work as showing a larger 
waste of time and of human energy. ..."
And so one might go on for an indefinite time and space, finding everywhere 
shrewd observation, clever reasoning, a delightful half-smile. The book deserves 
to be widely read and lovingly set on the nearer shelves.
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