Thorstein Veblen's Journal Analysis
This week’s journal assignment covered the life of Thorstein Veblen. Veblen grew up in Wisconsin on his family owned farm. Being a child of immigrants in the U.S. is never easy; however, the Veblen family could be considered a success story. The family farm provided more than enough which afforded the financial means for the children to continue with higher education. Thorstein Veblen pursued a study in economics along with philosophy. During his studies, Veblen started to form his own view on economics which lead to influence his understanding of socialism. Veblen seem to be very critical when it came to capitalism, but unlike Marx’s view, Veblen believed technology would lead to a intermediate socialistic state and be the shortcoming of capitalism(“Thorstein Veblen”, 2016, para. 1).
…show more content…
I found within Veblen’s writings, a prime explanation of the majority of middle to upper class and how their actions influence others.
Conspicuous consumption is the backbone to our current credit card crisis. The thought process which is explained so eloquently by Veblen when it comes to the ways and means of people’s spending habits along with how corporation use these behaviors to market their wares. Why would a company sell you an economy class when they can convince you that you need and deserve to sport yourself in the luxury class? “A $17,000 car provides transportation as easily as a $100,000 vehicle, but the luxury car makes a social statement that the less expensive car can’t live up to”(Little et al., 2014, p. 288). Additionally, you can see how certain class/type of people now find particular task beneath them as explained through the terms of Conspicuous leisure. So many people used to cut their own lawns and clean their own homes, but now they choose to employ what is usually referred to as the hired help to perform these manual
chores.
In closing, I believe Thorstein Veblen’s contributions to sociology continue to be relevant in today’s society. His ability to identify the relationship between society, class structure, and how business is conducted, especially in the United States with our ever changing economy, will continue to add value to further research.
357 words
I found within Veblen’s writings, a prime explanation of the majority of middle to upper class and how their actions influence others.
Conspicuous consumption is the backbone to our current credit card crisis. The thought process which is explained so eloquently by Veblen when it comes to the ways and means of people’s spending habits along with how corporation use these behaviors to market their wares. Why would a company sell you an economy class when they can convince you that you need and deserve to sport yourself in the luxury class? “A $17,000 car provides transportation as easily as a $100,000 vehicle, but the luxury car makes a social statement that the less expensive car can’t live up to”(Little et al., 2014, p. 288). Additionally, you can see how certain class/type of people now find particular task beneath them as explained through the terms of Conspicuous leisure. So many people used to cut their own lawns and clean their own homes, but now they choose to employ what is usually referred to as the hired help to perform these manual
chores.
In closing, I believe Thorstein Veblen’s contributions to sociology continue to be relevant in today’s society. His ability to identify the relationship between society, class structure, and how business is conducted, especially in the United States with our ever changing economy, will continue to add value to further research.
357 words