The Theory of the Leisure Class

16 Nov, 2023 330 Economics

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good.

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Guests

  • Matthew Watson 2 episodes
    Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
  • Bill Waller No other episodes
    Professor of Economics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York
  • Mary Wrenn No other episodes
    Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of the West of England

Reading list

  • Veblen: The Making of an Economist who Unmade Economics
    Charles Camic (Harvard University Press, 2021)
  • Thorstein Veblen: Theorist of the Leisure Class
    John P. Diggins (Princeton University Press, 1999)
  • The Bard of Savagery: Thorstein Veblen and Modern Social Theory
    John P. Diggins (Seabury Press, 1978)
  • The Affluent Society
    John Kenneth Galbraith (Penguin, 1999)
  • The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers
    Robert Heilbroner (Penguin, 2000)
  • Veblen in Plain English: A Complete Introduction to Thorstein Veblen's Economics
    Ken McCormick (Cambria Press, 2006)
  • The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen
    Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman (Yale University Press, 2012)
  • The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need
    Juliet B. Schor (William Morrow & Company, 1999)
  • Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture
    Juliet B. Schor (Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2005)
  • The Theory of the Leisure Class
    Thorstein Veblen (Oxford University Press, 2009)
  • The Theory of Business Enterprise
    Thorstein Veblen (Legare Street Press, 2022)
  • The Higher Learning in America
    Thorstein Veblen (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)
  • Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America
    Thorstein Veblen (Routledge, 2017)
  • Conspicuous Consumption
    Thorstein Veblen (Penguin, 2005)
  • The Complete Works
    Thorstein Veblen (Musaicum Books, 2017)
  • Institutional Economics: Perspective and Methods in Pursuit of a Better World
    Charles J. Whalen (ed.) (Routledge, 2021)

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Programme ID: m001sdrt

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001sdrt

Auto-category: 330 (Economics)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. In 1899, at the height of the American Gilded Age, Thorstein Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class, a reminder that all that glistens is not gold.