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The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen

The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen

Sidney Plotkin

(2017)

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Abstract

Amidst the global financial and political crises of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen is a stimulating addition to this new body of scholarship, offering fresh material for ongoing reconsiderations of Veblen as a major theoretical resource for present-day debates on epistemology, social evolution, values, higher education, capitalist development and politics.


Sidney Plotkin is professor of political science and Margaret Stiles Halleck Chair of Social Sciences at Vassar College, USA. He received his PhD in political science from City University of New York. Plotkin has written extensively on issues of land use, political power and community action, resulting in numerous articles and two books, Keep Out: The Struggle for Land Use Control (1987) and Private Interest, Public Spending (1994). More recently, his attention has turned to the work of Thorstein Veblen, about whom he has published many articles, and, with Rick Tilman, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen (2011). Plotkin has served as president of the International Thorstein Veblen Association.


Amidst cascading global financial and political crises of the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries, scholars have turned for insight to the work of the radical American thinker, Thorstein Veblen. Inspired by an abundance of new research, social scientists from multiple disciplines have displayed a heightened appreciation for Veblen’s importance and value for contemporary social, economic and political studies. “The Anthem Companion to Thorstein Veblen,” edited with an introduction by Sidney Plotkin, is a stimulating addition to this new body of Veblen scholarship.

The essays in the first part consider Veblen’s method, philosophy and values. Sociologist Erkki Kilpinen peers deeply into Veblen’s highly original theory of action and its implications for a sociological understanding of “the instinct of workmanship.” In contrast, economist William Waller, building on contemporary work in evolutionary economics and psychology, urges a considerably more bio-psychological interpretation of Veblen’s instinct theory. Intellectual historians Rick Tilman and Kohl Glau, exploring the secular foundations of Veblen’s moral theory, furnish a sharp critique of recent efforts to wed Veblen with Catholic social thought. Challenging older understandings, Russell H. and Sylvia E. Bartley, careful students of Veblen’s biography, offer novel insights into the impact of Veblen’s education at Carlton College, while sociologist Stephan G. Mestrovic thoughtfully insists that Veblen unduly limited his affirmation of “idle curiosity” as a chief resource for learning to elite post graduate schools.

Contemporary applications of Veblen’s theory to studies of capitalism, social structure and politics are the focus of the contributions in the next part. Anthropologist John Kelly forcefully urges a reconsideration of Veblen’s critical theory as an inspiration for both students and activists in an age of capitalism “after post-modernism and post-coloniality.” Returning to Veblen’s most important early work, sociologist Ahmet Oncu skillfully weaves the theory of the leisure class into a rich and exciting re-interpretation of Turkey’s Ottoman ruling groups. Building on Veblen’s critical theory of absentee ownership and power, political scientist Sidney Plotkin analyzes Veblen’s embrace of local forms of political economic self-rule, but notes Veblen’s sense of the ideological ambiguity of popular resistance to centralized power. Finally, geographer Ross Mitchell applies the radical democratic potential of Veblen’s concept of “the masterless man” to an understanding of both the possibilities and limits of contemporary left movements. Throughout, the essays offer fresh material for ongoing reconsiderations of Thorstein Veblen as a major theoretical resource for the contemporary social sciences.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover Cover 1
Front Matter i
Half-title i
Series information ii
Title page iii
Copyright information iv
Dedication v
Contents vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Thorstein Veblen’selusive Project 1
Pulling Themes Together: Action and Situation 15
Notes 16
Bibliography 17
Chapters (1-9) i
Part I Method, Philosophy and Values 19
Chapter One The Instinct of Workmanship and Other Philosophical Concepts in Thorstein Veblen’s Methodology 21
What the World Is Like 21
Why Is Economics Not an Evolutionary Science? 24
Are Instincts Data or Hypotheses?—Particularly, the Instinct of Workmanship? 26
Human Nature Restated in Terms of Habit 29
Notes 34
References 35
Chapter Two Reconsidering Thorstein 39
Veblen on Instincts 40
Veblen’s Instincts 41
The Parental Bent 42
The Instinct of Workmanship 43
Idle Curiosity 43
The Predatory Instinct 44
Emulatory Instinct 44
Other Instincts 44
Influences on Veblen’s Conception of Instincts 45
Jacques Loeb 45
William McDougall 46
C. Lloyd Morgan 46
William James 47
Maurice Parmalee 47
A Closer Look at Veblen and Instincts 48
Tilman on Veblen and Instinct 49
Hodgson on Veblen’s Use of Instinct and Habit 50
The Rationale for Re-exploring Veblen’s Instincts 51
Instincts as Adaptations 51
The Parental Bent as Adaptations 53
The Instinct of Workmanship Considered 57
Idle Curiosity as an Adaptation 57
The Predatory Instinct 59
Emulation as an Adaptation 60
Conclusions 61
Notes 64
References 65
Chapter Three Roman Catholic Critics of Thorstein Veblen and Institutional Economists 69
Introduction 69
Dobriansky’s Attack on “Veblenism” via Philosophia Perennis 72
Shannon’s Attack on “Conspicuous Criticism” 77
Cardinal Ratzinger and a Recent Critique of Veblen 83
Veblen, Dewey and Ayres: Religious Upbringing Discarded 85
Veblen: The Meaning of the “Generic Ends of Life, Impersonally Considered” 85
Obiter Dicta 91
Conclusion 92
Epilogue: Secular Humanism and Institutional Economists 93
Notes 95
Chapter Four The Metaphysical World of Thorstein Veblen: of and Beyond The Here and Now 101
The Carleton Years, 1874–1880 103
The Metaphysical Veblen 116
Notes 124
Chapter Five Veblen’s Position on Education Analyzed and Reformulated 129
Confronting the Contradictions 133
Attempts to Resolve the Contradictions 136
Overlap with Ritzer’s McDonaldization Thesis 138
Analyzing the Shift in Educational Philosophy toward Standards-Based Education and Pecuniary Considerations 140
Criticisms of the NCLB and the Standards-Based Approach 144
Reformulating Veblen’s Theory of Education, and Conclusions 145
Note 147
References 147
Part II Capitalism, Social Structure and Politics 149
Chapter Six Reigniting The Anthropology of Capitalism 151
Thomas Piketty and the Poverty of Contemporary Theory 154
Veblen’s Three Starting Places: Credit, Sabotage and Enterprise 160
Credit 161
Sabotage 163
Business Enterprise 164
The Ambivalences in the Anthropology of Capitalism 165
What, Then, Is to Be Done? 166
From Sahlins to Veblen and Back 172
East of Eden, What Politics Is, and Is Not 172
Conclusion: Anthropology, Capitalism and Effectiveness on the Roads out of Kant 179
Notes 182
Bibliography 186
Chapter Seven On The Social Origin of The Leisure Class in Turkey 189
A Veblenian Framework of Structure and Agency: Leisure Class, Invidious Status and Conspicuous Waste 193
Divitçioglu’s Reconstruction of the Asiatic Mode of Production with Respect to Ottoman Society 198
Instead of a Conclusion 204
Chapter Eight Veblen’s Localism and its Ambiguities 213
Contradictions of Scale in The Theory of the Leisure Class 217
Urban Consumption as Social Integration 219
Urban Speculation as Social Integration 220
Localism, Resistance and the Spirit of Insubordination 224
Conclusion 229
Notes 230
Bibliography 233
Chapter Nine Learning from Veblen’s Masterless Man for Grassroots Democratic Change 237
Introduction 237
The Current Situation 239
An Emergent New Order of Business and Politics 241
Capitalism as (Conspicuously) Consumptive and Wasteful 241
The Masterless Man 243
The Spirit of Insubordination 244
Democracy and Capitalism 245
Business Takes Care of Business 247
Wealth Distribution, Inequality and the Vested Interests 247
A Veblenian Take on the Occupy Movement 250
The Occupy Movement 250
Veblen and the Occupy Movement 252
Conclusion 253
Epilogue 254
Acknowledgements 255
Notes 255
Bibliography 255
End Matter 257
Contributors 257
Index 261