“As increased industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community are bent to the compassing of a higher result in conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace.”

—  Thorstein Veblen, book The Theory of the Leisure Class

Source: The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), p. 111

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American academic 1857–1929

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