Law in Contemporary Society

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VeblenIfYouGiveAMouseACookie 6 - 06 Apr 2010 - Main.KalliopeKefallinos
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 Did you ever think capitalism might end because it was too… successful? Veblen offers this possibility.

Specifically, Veblen seems to define capitalism as the creation of conspicuous consumption. The higher classes accumulate profit to devote themselves to conspicuous consumption. Everyone emulates everyone who is higher than them in the social hierarchy. The lower classes emulate the higher classes by consuming as conspicuously as they possibly can. As capitalism progresses and the manifestations of conspicuous consumption grow in number, Veblen seems to say the lower classes may begin to feel like they are getting poorer and poorer comparatively. This feeling might be so strong that capitalism itself is overthrown.

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 It's important to remember the different time period in looking to his claims and diction. In 1899, "sports" wasn't exactly sports as we see it today. I think a similar thing holds for his description of "barbarians" and "savages".

-- StephenSevero - 06 Apr 2010

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>		Aerin, my goal in this post was to talk about Veblen without invoking Marx, but thanks for the opportunity haha. I see 3 significant differences between Veblen and Marx regarding capitalist critique and class conflict that are worth exploring:

(1) Veblen's conception of society (and therefore of class conflict) is interestingly different from Marx insofar as Veblen maintains that the objective situation of the poor as a class is not in fact growing worse over time. For Marx, the proletariat is led to overthrow capitalism because their objective situation worsens such that they finally realize what's really going on. Veblen's poor class will only just "feel" like things are getting worse as time goes on.

(2) Even Marx is willing to admit that some commodities have use value. Veblen's stance is far more extreme in this respect.

(3) Even though Marx critiques capitalism, he saw it as part of man's evolutionary history. Veblen says capitalism is just another form of the same shit that's been going on for centuries. He sprinkles the term "evolution" throughout the book jokingly, I think.

Do you agree with this? Hope this makes sense...

-- KalliopeKefallinos - 06 Apr 2010

 
 
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Revision 6r6 - 06 Apr 2010 - 15:13:19 - KalliopeKefallinos
Revision 5r5 - 06 Apr 2010 - 14:22:52 - StephenSevero
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