Thorstein Veblen: The Theory of the Leisure Class

Author(s):  
Christian von Scheve
Lire Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53
Author(s):  
Resneri Daulay

This research entitled “Consumerism of Leisure Class in Singapore in Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians: A Sociological Approach”. The purpose of this study is to analyze the leisure class reflected in Singapore in the novel Crazy Rich Asians. In addition, the aim of this research is to reveal the consumerism of leisure class in Crazy Rich Asians. This novel contained the aspect about the style of consumer in Singapore. This study used the mimetic approach by M.H. Abrams. The research used qualitative method to analyze the data. This study is used two main concepts of theory of leisure class by Thorstein Veblen, these are conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. The research applied the data of Singaporeans leisure class in the book Understanding Singaporeans: Values, Lifestyle, Aspirations and Consumption Behaviours by Keng et al. This study also applied the concept of uniquely Singaporean mindset in the book entitled The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love affair with Luxury by Chadha and Paul as a tool to analyze the consumerism of leisure class in the novel Crazy Rich Asians.              In this study, the researcher found two main results. First, this study indicated conspicuous leisure as a signal of leisure class in Crazy Rich Asians based on seven leisure activities of Singaporean. They are sports, social, self-improvement, various charity, travel, home, and other activities. Second, the study discover the consumerism of leisure class in the novel Crazy Rich Asians and uniquely Singaporean mindset as a main result of consumerism of leisure class in Singapore reflected in the novel Crazy Rich Asians.


Author(s):  
Trevor Merrill

Thorstein Veblen was an American economist, sociologist and social critic. He earned his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1884. After a six-year stint on his family’s farm, he found employment at the University of Chicago, where he remained for fourteen years. He is best known for The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), his penetrating and idiosyncratic analysis of the upper middle class.


Author(s):  
Indra Setia Bakti ◽  
Anismar Anismar ◽  
Khairul Amin

This article aims to discuss Thorstein Veblen's perspective about the behavior of waste or excessive consumption by the leisure class. This article uses the library research to understanding the perspective of Veblen's theory of consumption. We review Veblen's work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, as the main note complemented by relevant books and journals to support this study. The leisure class in this regard act deliberately to display their wealth. The newly rich group flaunted the luxury of their life with a motive to accommodate their desire for social respect and social status. The leisure class realizes their social actions through conspicuous leisure time consumption and conspicuous consumption of goods characterized by imitative and emulative behavior among the actors involved in it. The conspicuous consumption behavior produces élite taste which in turn has a social impact that affects the class behavior of the lower strata.AbstrakArtikel ini bertujuan untuk mendiskusikan sudut pandang Thorstein Veblen dalam melihat perilaku konsumsi berlebihan yang dilakukan oleh kelas sosial tertentu dalam masyarakat. Studi ini menggunakan metode kajian pustaka dalam memahami perspektif teori konsumsi Veblen. Data dalam artikel ini bersumber dari karya-larya Veblen sendiri, The Theory of the Leisure Class, serta buku-buku dan jurnal-jurnal yang relevan dalam mendukung artikel ini. Perilaku ini rupanya lahir dari sebuah konteks sosial dimana kelompok orang kaya baru mencoba mengakomodasi hasrat mereka akan penghargaan sosial dan status sosial. Hal ini diwujudkan melalui konsumsi waktu luang mencolok dan konsumsi barang mencolok yang ditandai dengan perilaku imitatif dan emulatif diantara aktor-aktor yang terlibat di dalamnya. Perilaku konsumsi mencolok menghasilkan selera elite yang selanjutnya meluas dan berdampak secara sosial dimana mempengaruhi perilaku kelas dari strata yang lebih rendah


Author(s):  
Facundo Gustavo Corvalán ◽  
Gustavo Alberto Masera

El institucionalismo económico es una corriente de pensamiento cuyo nacimiento puede situarse hacia fines del siglo XIX, a partir de la publicación de la obra The Theory of the Leisure Class por parte de Thorstein Veblen y A Sociological View of Sovereignty de John R. Commons, ambas de 1899.Se demuestra que el institucionalismo fue, en su origen, un movimiento intelectual esencialmente norteamericano con una considerable influencia en los ámbitos académicos y políticos en el período que media entre el fin de la Primera Guerra Mundial y la crisis de la tercera década del siglo XX. Se busca remarcar el aspecto disidente del institucionalismo frente a la dominancia del sistema clásico. Esta labor permite establecer los orígenes y la identidad de un movimiento económico de importancia para el presente de la ciencia económica, puesto que desde hace algunos años se vive un renacimiento institucionalista.


polemica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-118
Author(s):  
Ronaldo Rangel ◽  
Gabriel Dolabela Raemy Rangel

Resumo: O ensaio revisita os livros A Teoria da Classe Ociosa (originalmente publicado em 1899), de Thorstein Veblen, e Modernidade Líquida, de Zygmunt Bauman, publicado pela primeira vez em 1999, os quais, embora separados por um século de história humana, observam as experiências sociais de seus respectivos tempos com constructos muito assemelhados. O ensaio assume que Veblen descreve efeitos da modernidade que emerge no fim do século XIX, ao passo que Bauman explicita a pós-modernidade do século XXI (à qual chama de Modernidade Líquida) e, com base nos autores, reflete sobre o indivíduo, as motivações de consumo, a demanda por crédito, o endividamento e outras categorias por eles tratadas, para apresentar um novo ator: o “consumidor falho” ou, como aqui chamado, o “indivíduo socialmente falho”.Palavras-chave: Consumo. Endividamento. Emulação pecuniária. Modernidade líquida.  Abstract: The essay revisits the books The Theory of the Leisure Class (originally published in 1899) by Thorstein Veblen and Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman first published in 1999 that, although separated by a century of human history, observe social experiences from their respective times with very similar constructs. The essay assumes that Veblen describes the effects of modernity that emerged at the end of the 19th century, while Bauman explains the post-modernity of the 21st century (which he calls Liquid Modernity) and, based on the authors, reflects on the individual, the motivations consumption, the demand for credit, indebtedness and other categories treated by them, to present a new actor: the 'flawed consumers' or, how we conceptualize, a “socially flawed individual”.Keywords: Consumption. Indebtedness. Pecuniary emulation. Liquid modernity.


2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Douglas Tallack

In ‘Picturing Change: At Home with the Leisure Class in New York City, 1870s-1910s’, Douglas Tallack draws on the work of Thorstein Veblen to explore the significance of the visual representation of domestic interior space within a leisure-class logic of consumption and display. Analysing photographic commissions undertaken by the Byron Company of the houses of New York's Four Hundred, and paintings by the American Impressionists William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam, he demonstrates that these images of luxury interiors did more than simply express the taste and lifestyle of the city's new money, however, composing and re-conceptualising the interior scene into a self-contained, private space of material objects shielded from external reality, the baroque saturation of which nevertheless exposes its illusion.


Author(s):  
Rosemary Wakeman

Mass consumption and leisure are among the most fascinating and thought-provoking challenges for twentieth-century historians. It was precisely the initial phases of mass consumerism that prompted Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen to warn of the consequences of ‘conspicuous consumption’ and misguided materialism in his 1899 The Theory of the Leisure Class. In Veblen's estimation, new-money leisure classes could dress up their pretensions and social status with a wasteful display of commodities. It was television more than any other factor that introduced people to the new world of things. Sports claimed a prominent place on television and in leisure life throughout Europe in the second half of the twentieth century and beyond. Tourism emerged from the ashes of World War II as one of the best prospects for European economic recovery and for providing relief for restive, war-weary Europeans only too happy for a few days of holiday respite. The second half of the twentieth century gives scholars every reason for pause in assessing the intertwining of citizen and consumer.


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