Author
Thorstein Veblen
The same voice, gathered in one place.
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 61
These canons of reputability have had a similar, but more far-reaching and more specifically determinable, effect upon the popular sense of beauty or…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 62
The generalization for which the discussion so far affords ground is that any valuable object in order to appeal to our sense of beauty must…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 63
By further habituation to an appreciative perception of the marks of expensiveness in goods, and by habitually identifying beauty with reputability,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 64
The same variation in matters of taste, from one class of society to another, is visible also as regards many other kinds of consumable goods, as,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 65
Public parks of course fall in the same category with the lawn; they too, at their best, are imitations of the pasture. Such a park is of course best…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 66
Today a divergence in ideals is beginning to be apparent. The portion of the leisure class that has been consistently exempt from work and from…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 67
A weakness for crudely serviceable contrivances that pointedly suggest immediate and wasteless use is present even in the middle-class tastes; but it…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 68
The select leisure class has outgrown the use of these pseudo-serviceable variants of pecuniary beauty, at least at some points. But the taste of the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 69
The popular taste in these matters is to be seen in the prevalent high appreciation of topiary work and of the conventional flower-beds of public…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 70
The love of nature, perhaps itself borrowed from a higher-class code of taste, sometimes expresses itself in unexpected ways under the guidance of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 71
The fast horse, then, is aesthetically fortunate, in that the canon of pecuniary good repute legitimates a free appreciation of whatever beauty or…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 72
This process of selective adaptation of designs to the end of conspicuous waste, and the substitution of pecuniary beauty for aesthetic beauty, has…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 73
It is notorious that in their selection of serviceable goods in the retail market purchasers are guided more by the finish and workmanship of the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 74
It is to be added that a large share of those features of consumable goods which figure in popular apprehension as marks of serviceability, and to…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 75
The appreciation of those evidences of honorific crudeness to which hand-wrought goods owe their superior worth and charm in the eyes of well-bred…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 76
As has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecorous, articles of daily consumption in modern industrial communities are commonly…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 77
It is of course only as to the economic value of this school of aesthetic teaching that anything is intended to be said or can be said here. What…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 78
The dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence from productive employment. It needs no…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 79
But the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modern man in the degree in which it argues exemption from labor; it also adds a peculiar…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 80
For a creative principle, capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions, we shall have to go back to the primitive,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 81
It would seem at first sight that the result of such an unremitting struggle to attain the beautiful in dress should be a gradual approach to…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 82
The explanation of the fashions just offered, then, does not fully explain, and we shall have to look farther. It is well known that certain…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 83
The process of developing an aesthetic nausea takes more or less time; the length of time required in any given case being inversely as the degree of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 84
There remains at least one point in this theory of dress yet to be discussed. Most of what has been said applies to men's attire as well as to that…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 85
At the stage of economic development at which the women were still in the full sense the property of the men, the performance of conspicuous…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 86
The line of demarcation between the dress of women, priests, and servants, on the one hand, and of men, on the other hand, is not always consistently…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 87
Something similar should hold true with respect to divers items of conspicuous consumption, and indeed something of the kind does seem to hold to a…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 88
The life of man in society, just like the life of other species, is a struggle for existence, and therefore it is a process of selective adaptation.…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 89
For the present purpose, however, the question as to the nature of the adaptive process--whether it is chiefly a selection between stable types of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 90
The group is made up of individuals, and the group's life is the life of individuals carried on in at least ostensible severalty. The group's…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 91
It is a matter of common notoriety that when individuals, or even considerable groups of men, are segregated from a higher industrial culture and…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 92
In order to realize the difficulty which such a radical change in any one feature of the conventional scheme of life would involve, it is only…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 93
From this proposition it follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them as much…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 94
All this, of course, has nothing to say in the way of eulogy or deprecation of the office of the leisure class as an exponent and vehicle of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 95
But after all has been said on the head of conservation of the good old ways, it remains true that institutions change and develop. There is a…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 96
To adapt the classical terminology, they are institutions of acquisition or of production; or to revert to terms already employed in a different…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 97
The institution of a leisure class has an effect not only upon social structure but also upon the individual character of the members of society.…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 98
These two broad principles of conspicuous waste and industrial exemption affect the cultural development both by guiding men's habits of thought, and…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 99
This necessary variation of the types themselves, due to a selective process of considerable duration and of a consistent trend, has not been…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 100
The ethnic types of today, then, are variants of the primitive racial types. They have suffered some alteration, and have attained some degree of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 101
Under the guidance of the later biological and psychological science, human nature will have to be restated in terms of habit; and in the restatement…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 102
The character and exigencies of life, under that regime of status and of individual and class antithesis which covers the entire interval from the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 103
Such a generic feature is not readily eliminated, even under a process of selection so severe and protracted as that to which the traits here under…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 104
Under any known phase of culture, other or later than the presumptive initial phase here spoken of, the gifts of good-nature, equity, and…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 105
As seen from the point of view of life under modern civilized conditions in an enlightened community of the Western culture, the primitive,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 106
On the other hand, the immediate interest of the individual under the competitive regime is best served by shrewd trading and unscrupulous management…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 107
It has already been noticed that modern economic institutions fall into two roughly distinct categories--the pecuniary and the industrial. The like…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 108
The educative action of the economic life of the community, therefore, is not of a uniform kind throughout all its manifestations. That range of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 109
The employments of the leisure classes in modern industry are such as to keep alive certain of the predatory habits and aptitudes. So far as the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 110
Something of the sort seems to be true in fact. There is, for instance, an appreciable proportion of the upper classes whose inclinations lead them…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 111
From what has been said, it appears that the leisure-class life and the leisure-class scheme of life should further the conservation of the barbarian…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 112
In a general and uncertain way this holds true, but the test is not so readily applied nor so conclusive as might be wished. There are several…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 113
The modern industry requires an impersonal, non-invidious interest in the work in hand. Without this the elaborate processes of industry would be…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 114
But little if anything has been done towards collecting or digesting data that are of special significance for the question of survival or…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 115
The leisure class lives by the industrial community rather than in it. Its relations to industry are of a pecuniary rather than an industrial kind.…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 116
The most immediate and unequivocal expression of that archaic human nature which characterizes man in the predatory stage is the fighting…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 117
This class difference in temperament may be due in part to a difference in the inheritance of acquired traits in the several classes, but it seems…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 118
In girls the transition to the predaceous stage is seldom accomplished with the same degree of completeness as in boys; and in a relatively large…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 119
In the male child the predaceous interval is ordinarily fairly well marked and lasts for some time, but it is commonly terminated (if at all) with…
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The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 120
The ethnic composition of the European populations varies. In some cases even the lower classes are in large measure made up of the…
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