The abjectly poor, and all those person whose energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today.

Thorstein Veblen

Categorized in : Struggle Energy Effort

Labor wants pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful - to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister.

Thorstein Veblen

respect beautiful inspirational

Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.

Thorstein Veblen

leisure gentleman mean

The thief or swindler who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the rigorous penalty of the law.

Thorstein Veblen

escaping thieves law

The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities.

Thorstein Veblen

quality gentleman idols

Only individuals with an aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their self-esteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.

Thorstein Veblen

self-esteem running character

The possession of wealth confers honor; it is an invidious distinction.

Thorstein Veblen

wealth distinction honor

Born in iniquity and conceived in sin, the spirit of nationalism has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

Thorstein Veblen

patriotism politics spirit

The institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life.

Thorstein Veblen

leisure transition class

As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity-'teleological activity.' He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of being such an agent, he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile effort.

Thorstein Veblen

agents effort men

The dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery

Thorstein Veblen

mastery dog play

Socialism is a dead horse.

Thorstein Veblen

horse politics wisdom

A protective tariff is a typical conspiracy in restraint of trade.

Thorstein Veblen

typical tariffs libertarian

The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is... present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.

Thorstein Veblen

norm requirements beautiful

The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature.

Thorstein Veblen

addiction sports men

The chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability to pay.

Thorstein Veblen

masters use pay

Abstention from labor is the conventional evidence of wealth and is therefore the conventional mark of social standing.

Thorstein Veblen

wealth mark social

Invention is the mother of necessity.

Thorstein Veblen

invention favourite mother

Instead of investing in the goods as they pass between producer and consumer, as the merchant does, the businessman now invests in the processes of industry.

Thorstein Veblen

investing process doe

No one travelling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.

Thorstein Veblen

business-trips business would-be

It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost, and at any risk to the rest of the community.

Thorstein Veblen

risk community business