To report typos, typography errors, or other corrections, see how to report errors. More detailsĪnyone can contribute to make a Standard Ebook better for everyone! ![]() Harmonize public domain information and license across files Update colophon/imprint boilerplate to new standards Read about which file to download and how to transfer them to your ereader. You may also be interested in our Kobo FAQ.Īdvanced epub â An advanced format that uses the latest technology not yet fully supported by most ereaders. Also download the Kindle cover thumbnail to see the cover in your Kindleâs library. As such, The Theory of the Leisure Class might be one of the most prescient and influential books of economic and social science of the 20th century.Ĭompatible epub â All devices and apps except Kindles and Kobos.Īzw3 â Kindle devices and apps. Practical labor continues to be viewed as basically demeaning, while people struggle in vain to chase a glimmer of the vast wealth that celebrities, investors, bankers, hedge fund managers, and C-suite dwellersâthe conspicuously-consuming leisure class of todayâopenly flaunt. Though it was written over a hundred years ago when industrial society was just getting its footing, Veblenâs thesis predicts much of the social stratification we recognize today. He argues that many of what some would consider societyâs ills are linked to this fundamental concept: for example, the mistreatment of womenâforcing them into constricting clothing, preventing them from participating in independent economic lifeâis a way for their husbands to show off their unemployed status as a kind of conspicuous leisure or societyâs obsession with sports, celebrity, and organized religion, all forms of conspicuous leisure that bring no productive benefit to society, and on the contrary waste time and resources, but whose practitionersâsuperstars and clergyâmaintain a high social status. ![]() In those ancient societies, productive labor came to be viewed as disreputable and dirty thus, status is won not by accumulating wealth, but by displaying the evidence of wealth. Meanwhile, the lower and middle classes are the ones actually engaged in work that is productive to societyâmanufacturing and industryâwith the goal of eventually being able to emulate the social status afforded by the conspicuous consumption of their leisure class masters.Īlong the way, Veblen links these behaviors with social strictures left over from feudal society, arguing that contemporary human society has not evolved far beyond our medieval peasant-and-lord forefathers. Their work instead becomes what he calls âconspicuous consumptionâ: spending their wealth in increasingly ostentatious ways in order to preserve their class status. Veblenâs thesis centers on the definition of what he calls the âleisure class,â the upper social class consisting of wealthy individuals who are socially exempt from productive work. It was against this backdrop that Veblen, an economist and sociologist at the University of Chicago, wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class, a book that brought the phrase âconspicuous consumptionâ into the modern vocabulary. Part of the Encyclopædia Britannicaâs Great Books of the Western Worldġ899 was the tail end of the Gilded Age, a time in America of rapid economic expansion that caused a select few to become ultra-wealthy, while millions of commoners struggled in abject poverty. The Theory of the Leisure Class Thorstein Veblenġ06,344 words (6 hours 27 minutes) with a reading ease of 28.91 (very difficult) ![]() The Theory of the Leisure Class, by Thorstein Veblen - Free ebook download - Standard Ebooks: Free and liberated ebooks, carefully produced for the true book lover.
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