The Theory of the Leisure Class
Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists
An analysis of the rich as an anthropologist might study a tribe. Veblen argues that the leisure class arose when predatory exploit became more honourable than productive work, and that its members prove their standing by conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, wasting time and goods in ways that visibly cost money. He applies the idea to dress, manners, sport, religion, higher learning and the position of women, whose idleness and finery display their husbands' wealth. The deadpan style is part of the argument, the rich described in the flat vocabulary of ethnography as if they were a tribe whose customs needed explaining.
We recommendThe Theory of the Leisure ClassOxford World's Classics, 2009Martha Banta's edition, with notes that identify Veblen's targets and an introduction on his style.
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- Written
- 1899
- Form
- Economics
- Language
- English
- Length
- Medium · 300 pp120 to 300 pages
- Difficulty
- Demanding3 of 5 for a first-year reader
Why it's on the list
Coining conspicuous consumption, and explaining that goods are bought to be seen costing money rather than to be used, gave economics and everyday speech a term for something everyone had noticed and no theory of rational choice could account for. Studying the rich as an anthropologist might study a tribe, in a flat vocabulary of exploit, emulation and waste, made the deadpan style part of the argument, since the reader cannot tell whether the description is neutral or savage and the uncertainty is the point. Tracing the leisure class to the moment when predatory exploit became more honourable than productive work grounded a critique of Gilded Age wealth in a whole theory of how honour is assigned, and founded the institutional school of economics that studies habits rather than calculations. Applying the idea to women, whose idleness and finery display their husbands' wealth, produced one of the earliest economic accounts of why women were kept from work, and the chapter on dress is still read as a founding text of fashion theory.
Key themes
- Money and class
- Coining conspicuous consumption, goods bought to be seen costing money, gave economics a term for something everyone had noticed and no theory of rational choice could explain.
- Society and the state
- Tracing the leisure class to the moment when predatory exploit became more honourable than productive work grounded the critique in a theory of how honour is assigned.
- Women and men
- Applying the idea to women, whose idleness and finery display their husbands' wealth, produced one of the earliest economic accounts of why women were kept from work.
- Art and beauty
- Beauty, Veblen argues, is confused with costliness, so that a hand-made spoon pleases because it is expensive and a lawn because it is useless.
- History and progress
- The leisure class is a survival of barbarian habits into industrial society, and its institutions lag behind the conditions of life that would make them obsolete.
Which edition to read
Our pick
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Oxford World's Classics, 2009
Martha Banta's edition, with notes that identify Veblen's targets and an introduction on his style.
Amazon: the Oxford World's Classics edition, opens in a new tabBookshop.org: the Oxford World's Classics edition, opens in a new tab
Overview
About three hundred pages, published in 1899, an analysis of the rich as an anthropologist might study a tribe. Veblen argues that the leisure class arose when predatory exploit became more honourable than productive work, and that its members prove their standing by conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, wasting time and goods in ways that visibly cost money.
He applies the idea to dress, manners, sport, religion, higher learning and the position of women, whose idleness and finery display their husbands’ wealth. The deadpan style is part of the argument.
What happens
The origin of the leisure class. Veblen traces the distinction between honourable exploit and ignoble labour to barbarian society, where the warrior and priest were exempt from productive work, and argues that the leisure class is a survival of that division.
Pecuniary emulation. Once wealth replaces prowess as the mark of honour, the motive of economic life becomes not subsistence but the invidious comparison of one’s wealth with others’, a race with no finish line.
Conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. Standing is proved by visible waste: of time, in leisure, manners and useless accomplishments, and of goods, in consumption beyond any use. As cities grow and neighbours become strangers, consumption overtakes leisure because it can be seen from further away.
The pecuniary standard of living and of taste. Veblen shows that what we call beauty is confused with costliness, so that hand-made goods please for their expense, a lawn for its uselessness, and a dog for its inutility.
Dress, sport, religion and learning. Dress is the purest case, since it must be visibly expensive, visibly unfit for work, and visibly up to date. Sport preserves the predatory temperament; devout observances display leisure; the higher learning cultivates useless knowledge as the mark of caste.
The position of women. The wife, who once was the chief drudge, becomes the chief instrument of vicarious leisure and consumption, her idleness and finery the display of her husband’s wealth, and Veblen reads the corset as a mutilation that advertises her unfitness for work.
How to read it
Read the deadpan style as part of the argument, the rich described in the flat vocabulary of ethnography, and notice that you cannot tell whether the description is neutral or savage.
Pay close attention to the term conspicuous consumption and to how it names something everyone had noticed and no theory of rational choice could account for.
Notice how the single principle, honour assigned to visible waste, is carried through dress, sport, religion and learning, and test whether it explains each or is stretched to cover them.
Consider the chapters on women, idleness and finery displaying a husband’s wealth, as an early economic account of why women were kept from work, and ask how far it still applies.
Read this book alongside The Wealth of Nations to compare an economics of rational self-interest with one of habit, emulation and waste, and to decide which better describes the people you know.
Questions it raises
- Is the deadpan style a mask for satire, or does Veblen mean the ethnographic tone in earnest, and does the book work differently depending on the answer?
- Does the theory of conspicuous consumption still explain the rich of a later age, who wear jeans and drive old cars, or has display simply found subtler forms that Veblen’s principle would predict?
- Is the origin of the leisure class in barbarian exploit a historical claim or a myth that does explanatory work whether or not it is true?
- What does the reduction of beauty to costliness leave out, and could a Veblenian ever admire anything?
- How far does the analysis of women as displays of their husbands’ wealth describe a world that has changed, and how far a world that has only changed its costumes?
- Why did a book that mocks the rich so thoroughly become a classic of the discipline that serves them, and what did economics take from it?
Highlights
The leisure class arose when predatory exploit became more honourable than productive work, and its members prove their standing by conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption, wasting time and goods in ways that visibly cost money.
Paraphrase of the book's central argument, honour assigned to visible waste.
Veblen applies the idea to dress, manners, sport, religion and higher learning, finding in each an institution shaped by the need to display wealth rather than by the use it claims to serve.
Paraphrase of the book's method, a single principle carried through the institutions of leisure-class life.
The position of women, whose idleness and finery display their husbands' wealth, makes the wife the chief instrument of vicarious consumption, her uselessness the evidence of his success.
Paraphrase of the book's analysis of women as displays, among its most influential passages.
