Author
Thorstein Veblen
The same voice, gathered in one place.
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 121
If this generalization as to the temperament of the boy among the working classes should be found true on a fuller and closer scrutiny of the field,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 122
These manifestations of the predatory temperament are all to be classed under the head of exploit. They are partly simple and unreflected expressions…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 123
A further feature in which sports differ from the duel and similar disturbances of the peace is the peculiarity that they admit of other motives…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 124
Still, there is ground for the sportsman's claim that under the existing conventionalities his need of recreation and of contact with nature can best…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 125
The possession and the cultivation of the predatory traits of character may, of course, be desirable on other than economic grounds. There is a…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 126
Something to a like effect is to be said of other traits that go to make up the barbarian character. For the purposes of economic theory, these…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 127
The astute man, it may be remarked, is of no economic value to the community--unless it be for the purpose of sharp practice in dealings with other…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 128
It has already been noted in an earlier connection, that in order to have the highest serviceability in the complex industrial processes of today,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 129
In so far as the individual's inherited aptitudes or his training incline him to account for facts and sequences in other terms than those of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 130
College athletics afford a case in point. It is contended by exponents of the devout element in college life--and there seems to be no ground for…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 131
As seen from the point of view of the later economic exigencies, devoutness is, perhaps in all cases, to be looked upon as a survival from an earlier…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 132
It is, of course, equally legitimate to consider these phenomena from a different point of view. They may be appreciated for a different purpose, and…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 133
The grave economic significance of the anthropomorphic habit of mind and of the addiction to devout observances must serve as apology for speaking…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 134
This requirement of conspicuous waste and of ceremonial cleanness from the traces of industry extends also to the apparel, and in a less degree to…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 135
Beyond the priestly class, and ranged in an ascending hierarchy, ordinarily comes a superhuman vicarious leisure class of saints, angels, etc.--or…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 136
It has already been pointed out that these latter classes, which live by, rather than in, the industrial process, are roughly comprised under two…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 137
From the point of view which the modern industrial life inculcates, phenomena are habitually subsumed under the quantitative relation of mechanical…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 138
In the older communities of the European culture, the hereditary leisure class, together with the mass of the indigent population, are given to…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 139
The case of the lower or doubtful leisure class in America--the middle class commonly so called--is somewhat peculiar. It differs in respect of its…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 140
The pecuniary or the leisure-class culture, which set out as an emulative variant of the impulse of workmanship, is in its latest development…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 141
As indicated above, the exemption from pecuniary stress has been carried farther in the case of the leisure-class women of the advanced industrial…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 142
All this of course does not question the fact that the proprieties of the substituted schedule are more decorous than those which they displace.…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 143
In the later and farther development of the pecuniary culture, the requirement of withdrawal from the industrial process in order to avoid social…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 144
It has been well and repeatedly said by popular writers and speakers who reflect the common sense of intelligent people on questions of social…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 145
The fact has already been remarked upon incidentally in the course of the discussion of the growth of economic institutions generally, and in…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 146
The habits derived from the predatory and quasi-peaceable culture are relatively ephemeral variants of certain underlying propensities and mental…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 147
The influence of the leisure class is not consistently for or against the rehabilitation of this proto-anthropoid human nature. So far as concerns…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 148
Learning, then, set out by being in some sense a by-product of the priestly vicarious leisure class; and, at least until a recent date, the higher…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 149
Cap and gown have been adopted as learned insignia by many colleges of this section within the last few years; and it is safe to say that this…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 150
The attitude of the schools and of the learned class towards the education of women serves to show in what manner and to what extent learning has…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 151
For an appreciation of the relation which these higher seminaries of learning bear to the economic life of the community, the phenomena which have…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 152
So far, nothing has been said of the Maecenas function of the well-to-do, which is habitually dwelt on at some length by writers and speakers who…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 153
By way of characterization of the Maecenas relation, it is to be noted that, considered externally, as an economic or industrial relation simply,…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 154
Science, in the sense of an articulate recognition of causal sequence in phenomena, whether physical or social, has been a feature of the Western…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 155
It is only as the exigencies of modern industrial life have enforced the recognition of causal sequence in the practical contact of mankind with…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 156
The professed grounds on which it has been sought, as far as might be, to maintain the received standards and methods of culture intact are…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 157
Owing to the circumstance that this knowledge has become part of the elementary requirements in our system of education, the ability to use and to…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 158
The case is analogous to what happens in the purchase of any article of consumption by a purchaser who is not an expert judge of materials or of…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 159
It is true, since conspicuous consumption has gained more and more on conspicuous leisure as a means of repute, the acquisition of the dead languages…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 160
In this respect the classics have until lately had scarcely a rival. They still have no dangerous rival on the continent of Europe, but lately, since…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 161
The leisure class and its standard of virtue--archaism and waste--can scarcely have been concerned in the introduction of the classics into the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 162
"Classic" always carries this connotation of wasteful and archaic, whether it is used to denote the dead languages or the obsolete or obsolescent…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 163
Elegant diction, whether in writing or speaking, is an effective means of reputability. It is of moment to know with some precision what is the…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 164
As felicitous an instance of futile classicism as can well be found, outside of the Far East, is the conventional spelling of the English language. A…
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Investing · Western classics
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Excerpt 165
On this head of purity of speech, as at other points where a conventional usage rests on the canons of archaism and waste, the spokesmen for the…
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Investing · Western classics