Thorstein Veblen is best known for his authorship of The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise, which made him a celebrated figure in the fields of economics and sociology at the turn of the twentieth century. In this book, Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman argue that in addition to his well-known work in these fields Veblen also made important—and until now overlooked—statements about politics. While Veblen's writings seldom mention politics, they are saturated with political ideas: about the relationship among war, executive power, and democracy; about the similarities between modern executive positions and monarchy; about the political influence of corporate power; about the symbolism of politics; and about many other issues. By demonstrating the deep relevance of Veblen's writings to today's political troubles, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen offers an important reconsideration of a major American thinker.

A bold new biography of the thinker who demolished accepted economic theories in order to expose how people of economic and social privilege plunder their wealth from society’s productive men and women. Thorstein Veblen was one of America’s most penetrating analysts of modern capitalist society. But he was not, as is widely assumed, an outsider to the social world he acidly described. Veblen overturns the long-accepted view that Veblen’s ideas, including his insights about conspicuous consumption and the leisure class, derived from his position as a social outsider. In the hinterlands of America’s Midwest, Veblen’s schooling coincided with the late nineteenth-century revolution in higher education that occurred under the patronage of the titans of the new industrial age. The resulting educational opportunities carried Veblen from local Carleton College to centers of scholarship at Johns Hopkins, Yale, Cornell, and the University of Chicago, where he studied with leading philosophers, historians, and economists. Afterward, he joined the nation’s academic elite as a professional economist, producing his seminal books The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise. Until late in his career, Veblen was, Charles Camic argues, the consummate academic insider, engaged in debates about wealth distribution raging in the field of economics. Veblen demonstrates how Veblen’s education and subsequent involvement in those debates gave rise to his original ideas about the social institutions that enable wealthy Americans—a swarm of economically unproductive “parasites”—to amass vast fortunes on the backs of productive men and women. Today, when great wealth inequalities again command national attention, Camic helps us understand the historical roots and continuing reach of Veblen’s searing analysis of this “sclerosis of the American soul.”

'Fascination with the economics of Thorstein Veblen is today no less than it was fifty years ago. Many books have been written about his life and ideas. But David Reisman breaks new ground by providing one of the best and most comprehensive explainations of Veblen's thought. Written in a strikingly fresh and lucid style, this work is one of the landmarks of the literature on this great and enduringly relevant economist.' Geoffrey M. Hodgson, University of Hertfordshire, UK 'Considering the inability of conventional economics to comprehend the socio-economic convulsions over the past few years in so many countries, it is surely time to try something else. David Reisman's The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen thus appears at a most opportune moment. This original analytical study is the best introduction into Veblen's work that I know of, and will, I trust, encourage a renewal of interest in possibly the most unjustly neglected of economists. Reisman's primary contention that there is despite obstacles to comprehension created by Veblen's personal idiosyncrasies and unconventional literary style a Veblen structure of thought, or general system, is fully confirmed by the evidence presented in his book. In this demonstration lies its great merit.' Samuel Hollander, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel 'Veblen is a notoriously difficult economist to read and understand. He was, however, unequivocal in his scorn for neoclassical economics, whose demise he took pleasure in predicting. In light of the limp excuses offered by the economics profession for its failure to anticipate the current global financial crisis, Reisman's incisive analysis of Veblen's writings suggests that were Veblen alive today, he would be revelling in schadenfreude. This timely book will make uncomfortable reading for neoclassical economists.' Douglas Mair, Heriot-Watt University, UK 'Reisman offers a brilliant distillation of Veblen's jaundiced purview of the social, psychological and pecuniary motivations that have driven man the social animal in his economic life down the ages, from noble savage to predatory barbarian in his ancient, modern, and potential guises. Avoiding hagiography, this book exposes Veblen's exaggerations as well as his compelling institutional insights into the evolution of capitalism and socialism. Reisman's own intellectual sweep in explaining and criticising Veblen demonstrate political economy at its best.' Roger Sandilands, University of Strathclyde, UK Thorstein Veblen was a multidisciplinary social scientist whose original insights continue to inspire debate. Rather than focusing on allocation, markets and scarcity, his perspective on economics was rather one of Darwinian evolution and perpetual development, unfolding conventions and interpersonal constraints. This interdisciplinary and comprehensive book determines that Veblen's disparate theories of conspicuous consumption, imperial Germany, the giant corporation and the speculation-led cycle all add up to a consistent and coherent world-view. Veblen was a fascinating author who deserves to be read for himself. This penetrating new interpretation demonstrates that he also identified a serious threat to property and peace in the form of irresponsible finance and frustrated workmanship. He believed corporate capitalism was at risk from its internal contradictions. This lucid book assesses the logic behind Veblen's stark and apocalyptic vision. The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen examines all of Veblen's books and articles, revealing that they are closely integrated to form an organic whole. It will prove valuable for scholars and students interested in sociological theory, politics and political economy, history and institutional economics.

With its wry portrayal of a shallow, materialistic 'leisure class' obsessed by clothes, cars, consumer goods and climbing the social ladder, this withering satire on modern capitalism is as pertinent today as when it was written over a century ago.

Thorstein Veblen's brilliant analysis about the pursuit of perpetual peace is necessary reading material for sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, economists, military specialists, and government officials.

Differentiated book- It has a historical context with research of the time-The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899), by Thorstein Veblen, is a treatise on economics and a detailed social critique of conspicuous consumption, based on social class and consumerism, derived from social stratification. of people and the division of labor, which are social institutions of the feudal period (9 to 15 c.) that have continued until the modern era. Veblen claims that the contemporary lords of the mansion, the entrepreneurs who own the means of production, have been employed in the economically unproductive practices of conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure, which are useless activities that contribute neither to the economy nor to production material of the useful goods and services required for the functioning of society, while it is the middle class and the working class that usefully work in the industrialized and productive occupations that support the whole of society.Conducted in the late 1800s, Veblen's socioeconomic analyzes of business cycles and the consequent pricing policy of the U.S. economy and the emerging division of labor, by technocratic specialty (scientist, engineer, technologist, etc.), proved to be predictions. precise and sociological of the economic structure of an industrial society.