Talk:Thorstein Veblen

Rewrite

The latest rewrite was constructed by leading Veblen scholars, including Anne Mayhew and other members of the Association For Evolutionary Economics. It is much more accurate and comprehensive than the privious entry, so it should please Veblen scholars. Please contact me if you have any concerns. User: InstyProf. Date: March 14, 2007 InstyProf 16:00, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite?

The following text is visible if you try to edit this article:

These two paragraphs come from the entry for Evolutionary Economics. Please edit them, or replace them.

Does this mean I can delete these two paragraphs and rewrite this entire entry (with appropriate sources) without someone yelling at me for mass deletion? --L. 13:43, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Biographical Info?

Thorstein Veblen was an interesting guy, but there's not much biographical information on him here. If someone knows about him, it would be nice if she up a section on it.

Language?

What on earth is a "valuational principle?" That's only one of the intrusions of jargon here. Frankly, this article needs a fair deal done to make it truly readable.

well that's fitting for an article on Veblen Burkander 20:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Ayresian Dichotomy

Contrary to popular belief, the Veblenian dichotomy is not between the technological and ceremonial. It is between business and industry. The former was emphasized by Ayres and has become incorrectly associated with the Veblenian dichotomy. Now, I know most (people who claim to be) followers of Veblen accept the incorrect notion of the veblenian dichotomy, so its probably against wikipedia's customs to go and change it completely. However, it should be mentioned that some hold the opposing view. William M. Dugger, one of those who rightly considers the Veblenian dichotomy to be business/industry has won the Veblen-Commons award, a sure sign that this correct view is becoming more common amongst Veblenites. The talk page indicates this entry is getting rewritten. So I won't change it now, but this should probably be considered by whoever rewrites the article. (Unsigned comment from User:65.35.245.89 03:31, 8 March 2006)

Actually, you are wrong. Veblen's dichotomy is an instinct dichotomy between the instinct of workmanship and the predatory animus. The instincts are created during a process of evolution (mostly LaMarckian, but also natural selection), and were established during different periods in a conjectural history presented by Velben. In the current period (the machine age), it happens that the instinct of workmanship corresponds to industry, and the predatory animus corresponds to business, so that version of the dichotomy applies only to a specific historical moment. The two poles of the dichotomy are also apparent in many other oppositions in the current period (not just industry/business), such as an occupational dichotomy with one side containing ecclesiastical, legal, and military occupations, and the other side containing scientists, handicraftsmen, and engineers.

By the 1940s, instincts were an archaic concept in social science, and Ayres tried to reframe the dichotomy without instincts, using ideas from John Dewey on instrumental reasoning. Whence his version of the dichotomy, which in the instrumental/ceremonial form is fairly general and quite close to Veblen's view. Bill Dugger, like Veblen, is a socialist (he might not like that label) and he is attracted to Veblen's dichotomy precisely because it seems to rip the veils off of the activities of businessmen, giving credit for our standard of living to skilled workers. I consider his view to be limited to the present period and to have its roots in praxis (that is, an attempt to use Veblen to reshape the world in a better way). I'll write on this as I get time. Anthon.Eff 21:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Mencken

Does Mencken--a guy who satirized everything and never meant what he said--really deserve credit as an important critic of Veblen? Sure, the contribution by User: Idols of Mud is well-written (and provides a source!), but the whole point of the critique appears to be that Veblen (the Minnesota peasant) has less knowledge of a cow's backside than Mencken (the Baltimore burger), a critique so obviously absurd that it becomes amusing--Mencken's intended effect. Actually, this whole article is kind of a train wreck, but this section about Mencken only makes it worse. Anthon.Eff 15:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

New edit deletes this critique. You are correct, it serves no purpose and distracts from the main points of such a page. InstyProf 00:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Major rewrite

InstyProf deleted all of the references in the previous text. I reintroduced them, and added a few more that I was sure of. I also removed a few of his statements. I removed the assertion that Peirce was an important influence on Veblen--unsupported by the biographical sources (check Dorfman), and hard to substantiate by pointing to any specific ideas in Veblen. I also removed some editorializing that didn't seem encyclopedic. Some of InstyProf's statements don't seem correct and I inserted a {{Fact}} tag to signal that I will remove these if a citation doesn't appear. Otherwise, I think InstyProf is doing good work and am glad that he's here. --Anthon.Eff 14:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

How formal does the citation need to be? Is it enough to attribute the statements that you flagged as "According to ____ ____", and then to insert the living person who made the statement, given that the living person is a well-resepected Veblen scholar? Or does it have to be a formal citation to a published article? Thanks much for your help!!!! InstyProf 16:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Here is the "official" policy: Wikipedia:Attribution. --Anthon.Eff 18:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Here are some reponses to your edits.

(1) There is no simple citation to show Peirce's influence on Veblen. So, let's get rid of that. It's widely accepted by many Veblen scholars, but it's probably not crucial. (2) You asked for a citation for the following paragraph: "In 1906, he received an appointment at Stanford University, where he left, it is often written, because of “womanizing.” Though the myth lives on, it seems more likely that rumors that had followed him from the University of Chicago where difficulties with his eccentric first wife had led some to see him, probably wrongly, as a roué, were used to help terminate the employment of a man, equally eccentric, who was widely regarded as a poor teacher and a radical critic." The citation for this argument is the book by Elizabeth Watkins Jorgensen and Henry Irven Jorgensen, _Thorstein Veblen: Victorian Firebrand_, M.E. Sharpe (April 1999), Chaps. 14 - 18. It might be best to remove the last four words and end the sentence with a period after teacher. Although Jorgensen and Jorgensen imply unhappiness over Veblen's lack of intellectual conformity they much more directly say that it was his eccentric dress and poor teaching that cost him support that might have saved him when his first wife came and mounted her attack. But Jorgensen and Jorgensen do provide powerful evidence that Veblen was not the sexual adventurer that he has been thought. (3) "In this work Veblen argued that consumption is used as a way to gain and signal status, but he also argued that all consumption is culturally determined and is used to signal identification with a group. [ citation needed]" The latter part of this sentence is also widely accepted by Veblen scholars, but there is no simple citation, and to establish the truth of the last clause requires a longer argument than is appropriate for Wikipedia. So let's just put a period after "signal status" and leave out the last clause. I hope these changes are acceptable. If so, I'll make them when I get a chance. Thanks, InstyProf 20:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and made your suggested changes, removing the tags. Thanks! --Anthon.Eff 13:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Addition of reference to "differential accumulation"

Recently, the following text was added to the Veblen page: "Some unaligned practitioners include theorists of the concept of "differential accumulation"." Given that this is not a widely known concept or group, as opposed to a large, official scholarly body such as the Association For Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), is it appropriate to have such a reference on this page? My initial inclination would be to remove this reference. Any thoughts? InstyProf 18:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you: very obscure indeed. I would support removing this (also very little external sources for article "differential accumulation", only the authors' archives - dubious....) Robertsch55 13:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Differential accumulation is an important contribution in International Relations and International Political Economy and has been published in several major refereed journals and university presses. I would support changing the text to "Veblen's work has been influential in the institutional analyses of International Political Economy, and is credited as the basis of the concept "differential accumulation"" Dreddly (talk) 11:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

University of Texas

I'm curious what Veblen's connection to UT is, i.e. why this article is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject University of Texas at Austin. The word "Texas" does not appear in the article. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, the connection is somewhat strained, but it must be due to the fact that the economics department at Texas was dominated for many years by Clarence Ayres who can be considered one of the most important "followers" of Veblen. --Anthon.Eff 03:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

When born?

Was he born 1857-07-30 (in text) or 1857-10-30 (in infobox)? Nsaa 22:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

He was born July 30 (Dorfman 1934: 3). Thanks for making the correction! --Anthon.Eff 12:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

In the article on Thorstein Veblen, the mathematician, Oswald Veblen, is cited as being Thorstein's nephew.

However, in the Wikipedia article on Oswald Veblen, Thorstein is mentioned as being is brother.

There is obviously an inconsistency.... that is, one of the articles in wrong on this point.

132.66.222.116 (talk) 22:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Birthplace

This citation indicates he was born in Valders, WI, not Cato, WI as indicated in the article. Do we know which source is correct? --ZimZalaBim ^talk 02:28, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

According to Dorfman (page 6), Veblen was born in Cato township (which, like Valders, is in Manitowoc County). Valders was the name of the valley in Norway his parents emigrated from, so obviously they had a certain affinity for Valders, WI, but their farm was within the boundaries of Cato.--Anthon.Eff (talk) 02:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Thx. I've removed mention of him from the Valders article. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 03:45, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Technocracy

Is there any reason for more than a cursory mention of Technocracy in this article? I'm trimming per WP:weight, but an IP keeps reverting. LK (talk) 02:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The proper application of WP:WEIGHT here would be in terms of how “reliable” sources on Veblen treated his associations with Technocracism. How much attention contemporary “reliable” sources on economic subjects more generally apply to Technocracism is nearly irrelevant to the application of WP:WEIGHT to an article on Veblen himself. (If few “reliable” sources on Veblen treated his associations with Technocracism as significant, then WP:WEIGHT would argue against much discussion even if overt Technocracism dominated modern economic thought.) —SlamDiego_←T 10:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The source which is currently being used seems to be, "The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study of Conflict in a Social Movement". It looks like that's really supposed to be "The Technocrats 1919-1967: A Case Study of Conflict and Change in a Social Movement". Only place I find that is this PDF, which is a Master's thesis. A thesis, otherwise unpublished, isn't generally considered a RS is it? Has this been published elsewhere? CRETOG8(t/c) 14:03, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

So far I haven't found any hints the author was later published, or that the thesis has been widely cited (other than on Wikipedia). It might be ok if there's a wide consensus among editors but without later published work in that field by the author, citations of it in other published works or independent publication of the thesis itself, no, this wouldn't be taken as a relaible source here. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not the only source over which there has been conflict.

1. Robert adds Bell (American Scholar) as cited in Tilman (Princeton University Press) [1]
2. Lawrencekhoo reverts it, claiming “Per wp:weight” [2]
3. Robert restores Bell [3]
4. Robert makes three more edits (consolidated), resulting in the use of Adair
5. Lawrencekhoo removes Adair [4], saying “rm fringe”

Adair might not qualify as a “reliable” source, but that's a matter of WP:RS, not of WP:WEIGHT. WP:WEIGHT cannot properly be invoked here at all, and WP:RS cannot be invoked to remove Bell, especially as Robert made it plain that what was being expressed was Bell's opinion. —SlamDiego_←T 14:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

It's tricky tracking down those sources. If Tilman is being used as a ref, then it should provide a page number. The two questions I see in regards to weight are (1) is the statement in the source a toss-off, a tiny piece of a big work? and (2) is the fact that a notable scholar (I don't know Bell myself, but giving his notability the benefit of the doubt) "sees an affinity between" a person and a movement a real enough connection to merit mention. To me it seems pushing it, but I'd want to see the actual context before judging either way. CRETOG8(t/c) 14:59, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Clearly the desirability of a page number is not properly addressed by deleting the passage and reference and invoking WP:WEIGHT. (And I'd rather not see Tilman used at all, since it's only being used to get to Bell.)
2. Bell also discusses the relationship between Veblen and the Technocracy movement in an introduction to The Engineers and the Price System. I wouldn't know whether the statement in the cited article were a “toss-off”, but the discussion in that introduction is not.
3. One can find scholars other than Bell who discuss how Veblen can be read as offering the same or similar ideas to those of the Technocracy movement, and how the founders of that movement pointed to Veblen as a principal influence. —SlamDiego_←T 15:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The Britannica article on Veblen (which is longer that ours) has only one mention of technocracy; it is at the end of a paragraph about his later works.

Another series of articles that appeared in The Dial was later published in the book The Engineers and the Price System (1921). In these pieces Veblen developed his ideas for reform of the economic system. He believed that engineers, who had the knowledge to run industry, should take over its direction because they would manage it for efficiency instead of profit. This theme was central to the brief Depression-era movement known as “technocracy.”

It makes no claim that Veblen was ever part of the technocracy movement, rather the technocracy movement took their ideas from him. LK (talk) 14:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The Britannica does not use the same policies as does Wikipedia. Nor does the Wikipedia article claim that Veblen was part of the Technocracy movement. Rather, it claims that Veblen was part of what was to become the Technocratic movement (which claim needs a “reliable” source) and that “Daniel Bell sees an affinity between Veblen and the Technocracy movement” (which claim has a “reliable” source). —SlamDiego_←T 14:45, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Which came first, tecnocracy or Veblen? That may be like asking who came first, radical communist feminists who hate high heels on women, or Veblen, who as I recall claimed that high heels were torture devices beloved of degenerate capitalists who liked showing off their excess, unproductive human chattel (women). So far as I'm aware, WP:WEIGHT says nothing about Britannica articles. However, I think the Adair source can be skived by any editor as not meeting RS. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

As it turns out, Bell (in his introduction to The Engineers and the Price System) seems to support a claim that Veblen wasn't really consulted on his membership in the Technical Alliance. He may simply have been co-opted. So the claim being supported by reference to Adair is especially problematic. —SlamDiego_←T 15:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Whenever I hear the word technocrat, I think of Bob McNamara. For what it's worth, the more I hear about the Adair, the less I like it. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

• The Adair reference seems fine. A Master's thesis which is well-referenced is a fine source for basic scholarship like this, and likely better than journal and newspaper articles which are written under much tighter deadlines. Adair, however, doesn't say that Veblen was a member of the Technical Alliance or the Technocracy. He isn't even clear as to whether Veblen joined the New Machine, an organization which preceded the Technical Alliance. Adair just says that there was a link (page 18). Veblen was associated with the founder of the New Machine, taught at the New School, and wrote a set of articles for the Dial which became his notable The Engineers and the Price System book. That's all worth including in the article. II | (t - c) 18:47, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I was working on editing and moving this to Veblen's biography:

Veblen proposes a soviet of engineers in one chapter in The Engineers and the Price System. According to Yngve Ramstad, this work's view that engineers, not workers, would overthrow capitalism was a "novel view". Veblen invited Guido Marx to the New School to teach and to help organize a movement of engineers, such as Morris Cooke; Henry Lawrence Gantt, who had died shortly before; and Howard Scott. Howard Scott then listed Veblen as on the temporary organizing committee of the Technical Alliance, perhaps without consulting Veblen or other listed members. The Technical Alliance, created in 1918-1919, would later become the Technocratic movement. . Daniel Bell sees an affinity between Veblen and the Technocracy movement.

And then I found I couldn't because of some protection on the page imposed by Gwen Gale. Perhaps I was not clear in my reversion summary that I intended to do something further. -- RLV 209.217.195.122 (talk) 19:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)