Chapter 2 explains how pecuniary emulation, the desire to outperform others to gain social recognition and respect, encourages the wealthy to consume not for personal comfort but rather to demonstrate their rank. This chapter establishes the importance of institutions in shaping people’s consumption patterns, foreshadowing the important role that sociology plays in the rest of the book.Ĭhapters 2-4 define the three central factors that give rise to conspicuous consumption in modern industrial culture. Veblen extends these ideas to the modern industrial period, which is an offshoot of “barbaric” culture in that its increased wealth has fostered greater social stratification, which is a product of competitive, predatory behavior, and an increase in conspicuous consumption. It illustrates the 19th-century European belief that society developed from a peaceable “savage” period characterized by cooperation and solidarity to a “barbaric” and predatory era marked by violence, economic development, and competition. The first chapter is an introduction while each subsequent chapter focuses on a different aspect of Veblen’s economic framework.Ĭhapter 1 provides a thematic and historical overview of human socio-economic development. The Theory of the Leisure Class comprises 14 titled chapters. This summary references the Oxford World’s Classics edition published in 2007 by Oxford University Press. Whenever possible, this guide substitutes contemporary language for outdated terms, taking care to maintain Veblen’s intended meaning. Veblen also assumes a patriarchal society in which women are wholly dependent upon men. These terms are replicated in this summary quotation marks when they are used within Veblen’s theoretical framework.
A Note on Content: Veblen refers to pseudo-scientific racial categories and theories of social development that have long been debunked.
0 kommentar(er)
