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This digital document is an article from Journal of Economic Issues, published by Association for Evolutionary Economics on December 1, 2002. The length of the article is 3520 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Durkheim and Veblen on the social nature of individualism. (Notes and Communications).(Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) compared with Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929))
Author: Rick Tilman
Publication: Journal of Economic Issues (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2002
Publisher: Association for Evolutionary Economics
Volume: 36Issue: 4Page: 1104(7)

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Book Description

Fired by Stanford and the University of Chicago but recommended by his peers to the presidency of the American Economic Association, Thorstein Veblen remains a baffling figure in American intellectual history. In part because he was an eccentric who shunned publicity, he has also been one of our most neglected. Veblen is known to the general public only as coiner of the term "conspicuous consumption," and to scholars primarily as one of many social critics of the reform-minded Progressive Era. This important critical biography--originally published as The Bard of Savagery and now appearing in paperback for the first time--attempts both to unravel the riddles that surround his reputation and to assess his varied and important contributions to modern social theory.

Customer Reviews (4)

Reviews from The Int'l Journal of Politics, Culture,&Society
Excerpts from the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 13 #2, Winter, `99:``Though not entirely successful in depicting the `essential' Veblen . . . .[this new Veblen biography] is essentialreading for students and scholars of Veblen. It cannot replace Dorfman'sbut it deserves equal billing,'' Clare Virginia Eby. ``Flaws andimperfections notwithstanding . . . . their book has entered the sholarlyliterature on Thorstein Veblen and will henceforth be obligatory readingfor anyone wishing to know him,'' Russell H. Bartley and Sylvia EricksonBartley.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW, July 11, 1999
. . . . Stanford alumni Elizabeth and Henry Jorgensen have written a clear, engrossing biography that corrects significant errors in previous accounts, but they can't overcome thecentral problem, Veblen himself . .. . Veblen returned to Palo Alto in 1927, 18 years after Stanford fired himfor supposed "immorality." . . . .the signal achievement of thisbook (flawed mainly by the Jorgensens' too-brief sketches of Veeblen'sthought): demonstrating, once and for all, that Veblen was not anunscrupulous womanizer.Though implausible oin its face, that reputationhas gone largely unchallenged for half a century, mostly because EllenVeblen blackened her husband's name so well.

Authors are amazed at the current Veblenian revival
The authors undertook this project because they believed that a man with such cantankerous ideas must have had an interesting life. Those who had written about him before were earnest in their approach but did not conveyan appreciation of his unique personality. Now with the current interest inthe millenium,there seems to be a Veblen revival.The WALL STREETJOURNAL of January 11, 1999, devoted a full page to fifteen of the ``Bestand Brightest Economic Thinkers Who Made a Difference.'' In this Pantheonof those ``who challenged the conventional wisdom'' and whose perceptions``changed the way millions thought and lived'' were Saint Thomas Aquinas,Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes and Thorstein Veblen.Other recent accolades to Veblen are found in Adam Goprik's article in theApril 26-May 3, 1999 issue of THE NEW YORKER, and John Carroll's column``Conspicuous Presumption'' in THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE of May 3, 1999Alex Beam of THE BOSTON GLOBE in his colum (April 21, 1999) entitled ``TheLove Song of Thorstein Veblen'' had this to say about out book:Heobserved that he was turned off by books that sort of dragged the sex lifesof their subjects in by the heels, and said: ``Not every distinguishedman's sex life is worth researching. . . . But Veblen, the enfant terribleof the turn-of-the century economics profession, enjoyed not just aninteresting sex life, as his latest biographers Elizabeth and HenryJorgensen make clear, he enjoyed his life in full. ``There can be no suchthing as a dull biography of Veblen, and this one does not disappoint. ``The man who would later anathematize the titans of capital was a cradlecontrarian . . . While Sioux marauders were killing fellow Norwegianhomesteaders in Minnesota during the 1860s the boy Thorstein sided with theIndians. . . . [He was also] A-religious--- `If there is a differencebetween religion and magic I have never seen it.' [Thus] Veblen disdainedhsi family's prairie Lutheranism and mocked the pieties of America's goldenage.``He was at heart an anthropologist. THE THEORY OF THE LEISURECLASS represents field work among the grandees who sent their children tothe universities where he taught, and among his censorious in-laws. . . .His trenchant analysis of what came to be called male chauvinism in hisessay, `The Barbarian Status of Women,' made him ever more unpopular. Escept perhaps, among women.``Veblen attracted intelligent women, whoshared his contempt for male ritual.Even for the serious-mindedJorgensens, it seems impossible to separate Veblen's life story from hislove stories.His first wife, Ellen Rolfe, destroyed his academic careerby tattling about her husband's affairs to the presidents of Stanford andthe University of Chicago.After trudging all night through a blizzard tovisit his second wife [-to-be] in `Nowhere,' Idaho, Veblen contacted doublepneumonia, which crippled him for life.``The Jorgensens correctly notethat even his most famous writings seem thick and turgid to the moderntaste. But he was the rarest of birds in 20th-century Amderica: a dangerousthinker.''

LONG overdue
Thorstein Veblen's reputation has not fared well in the hands of his biographers.The worst bio by far ("Thorstein Veblen and his America" written by Joseph Dorfman in 1934) has sat in libraries likeso much toxic waste waiting to mislead another scholar.
Between1993-95, Veblen's Minnesota childhood home was restored at great troubleand expense.Like most scholars, the restorers started with Dorfman andimmediately discovered how full of inaccuracies it was.Then the lettersof Andrew Veblen (Thorstein's older and "respectable" brother)were discovered.They were written to protest the distortions of Dorfman'smanuscript.They were extremely accurate and eventually would guidevirtually every aspect of the restoration.

It was only a matter oftime before a new generation of Veblen bios would be written based on thenew information.Rick Tilman's "Intellectual Legacy.." was thefirst, and in many ways the best.But his book was written for seriousVeblen scholars.
The new Jorgensen bio is not at all daunting.It iswell-written, well-research and very enjoyable to read.It focuses on thesignificant women in Thorstein's life--his amazing mother, his charmingsister Emily, his quite crazy first wife, and his extremely helpful secondwife.

This emphasis would not have been my first choice, but sinceTBV was the only political economist of his age who would be remotelyacceptable to a modern feminist, it was certainly appropriate.In fact,the Jorgensens seem to believe that of all the "heresies" thatgot Veblen in hot water, his enlightened views on women in society werepossibly the most problematic.

Outstanding!Every person who hasever been remotely interested in Veblen should read this book. ... Read more

Book Description
The influential economist and philosopher Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) was one of the most original and penetrating critics of American culture and institutions, and his work attracted and still attracts the attention of scholars from a wide range of political viewpoints and scholarly disciplines. Focusing on the doctrinal and theoretical facets of Veblen's political economy, this book offers a study not only of his ideas but also of the way his critics have responded to them. Rick Tilman assesses the weight of the critics' reactions, both positive and negative, as well as exposing their sometimes mistaken interpretations of Veblen's work. As he scrutinizes the ideologies of the conservatives, liberals, and radicals who commented on Veblen, he portrays the diversity of social theory in the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning with the first criticism of Veblen's work during the presidency of Benjamin Harrison and concluding with Daniel Bell's attack on him during the Kennedy administration, the book emphasizes those critics who systematically confronted the doctrinal structure of Veblen's thought and believed that they perceived in it fundamental weaknesses. But even the most negatively inclined--such as Paul Baran, Irving Fisher, and Talcott Parsons--admitted some of Veblen's strengths. Ironically, his supporters at times stripped his work of much of its potential for political and moral enlightenment without intending to do so. ... Read more

Book Description
Thorstein Veblen shook the complacency of America in the early twentieth century with his incisive criticisms of our social and economic systems. Discarding the classical view of "eternal" economic laws that conveniently justified the nineteenth-century predatory practices of "big business" in terms of rational self-interest, Veblen cast a fresh, merciless eye on America's money-making passion.

In glittering prose, Veblen exposed our social system as one designed to block man's natural "instinct of workmanship." He demonstrated that our leisure-class culture fostered the myth that work was inherently irksome to man. Veblen was also fascinated by the machine and the new science of technology. He saw businessmen basically at war with engineers and scientists because making exorbitant profits did not necessarily jibe with making better goods.

In his study of this intriguing personality, Thorstein Veblen, Douglas Dowd reveals that Veblen was unsuccessful in his university career and his two marriages, and in his private life was strange, bitter, and detached. But in his books, Veblen shone as one of America's most penetrating thinkers whose theories proved a potent force in the modernization of economics as a science. Dowd's sympathetic approach to Veblen's nature and problems places this giant in the field against a contemporary background in powerful and lively fashion. In his new introduction, Michael Keaney breathes new life into this unjustly neglected primer on Veblen. A new generation of students will undoubtedly benefit from this comprehensive guide to the thought of someone whose intellectual endeavor was non-doctrinaire and constantly changing. ... Read more

Book Description
Thorstein Veblen has made an immeasurable impact on the development of economics. His legacy has been to challenge orthodox thinking and inspire the institutionalist and evolutionary school of thought. In this book, a distinguished group of contributors analyses the impact, a century later, of Veblen's 1898 challenge to economics.

The authors examine the contribution of Veblen and some of his disciples to heterodox economics. They also reassess other contemporaneous discussions and contributions by other authors - Mitchell, Ayres, Commons, Keynes, Schumpeter, Tinbergen, Frisch - and present an overview of the state of the art in evolutionary economics. ... Read more

Book Description
For one year while a student at Stanford University, Robert Duffus, his brother, and for a time his ailing father, lived with Thorstein Veblen in his cottage, called "Cedro" not far from the campus. This autobiogaphical fragment nostalgically and sensitively describes that idyllic year and explains by implication the effects upon Duffus's thinking of his association with Veblen. "A fine study of a cynical philospher and his reasonaby adulating disciple." Saturday Review of Literature ... Read more

Book Description
Veblen was an original thinker, responsible for introducing and popularizing a host of important concepts and insights. He ignited controversy not only in economics, but also in sociology, history and political science. The number and quality of the responses to his work provide evidence of the novelty and explanatory power of his ideas. These comprehensive volumes will enable the reader to sample the broad spectrum of Veblen's thought and that of his critics and interpreters. They include critical appraisals of the corpus of his published work as well as reinterpretations of his life and influence on the social sciences particularly, economics, political science and sociology.

This authoritative collection includes reprints of materials previously published by leading scholars on nearly every aspect of Veblen's life and work. It will be invaluable to professional scholars and graduate students who wish to heighten their understanding of the alternatives to formalism in the social studies. ... Read more

Book Description
Scholars attempting to place Veblen in a particular intellectual tradition will only succeed in reaping frustration and confusion until it is recognized that he was primarily sui generis and eclectic. This is the recurring theme that is made explicit in the introduction, conclusion, and some of the chapters of this work. Veblen was a thinker of such depth and power that he was able to create his own intellectual paradigm. The result of his endeavors is that more than a few intellectuals including his followers, the institutional economists, have spent their careers trying to understand the paradigm and to develop it in several directions for their own purposes. ... Read more

Book Description
1999 is the 100th year anniversary of the publication of Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class.This volume commemorates and celebrates Veblen's seminal contribution to the analysis of consumerist capitalism and assesses the book's relevance to the twenty-first century.

Veblen's book was a pioneering effort to come to terms with industrial capitalism's consumer culture, and it became the foundation for much of contemporary institutional economics.This book examines Veblen's contribution to the analysis of the new global economy, the growth of the women's movement, inequality, consumption and gambling at the turn of the century.It concludes by analyzing the effects of the globalization of capitalism.

This book will be of great interest to scholars of the history of economic thought and particularly those interested in how we can relate Veblen's classic work to society today and in the future. ... Read more