Source: A Short History Of The English Law (First Edition) (1912), Chapter I, Old English Law, p. 11
“The latter-day outcome of this evolution of an archaic institution, the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the man… has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which he produces. But she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure and consumption is the abiding mark of the unfree servant.”
Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 83
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Thorstein Veblen 41
American academic 1857–1929Related quotes
“The power to become habituated to his surroundings is a marked characteristic of mankind.”
Source: The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919), Chapter I, p. 3
Die Nachfrage des Ökonomen ist nicht die wirkliche Nachfrage, seine Konsumtion ist eine künstliche. Dem Ökonomen ist nur der ein wirklich Fragender, ein wirklicher Konsument, der für das, was er empfängt, ein Äquivalent zu bieten hat.
Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (1844)
Ch. XXXII : The Barbarians , p. 282 https://books.google.com/books?id=EyrQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA282
This and That and the Other (1912)
Context: The Barbarian hopes — and that is the very mark of him — that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilisation has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort but he will not be at pains to replace such goods nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is for ever marvelling that civilisation should have offended him with priests and soldiers.
“Ode,” Complete Works (1883), vol. 9, p. 73
“Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.”
Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 57,
The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance (1965)