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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 |