Veblen Today

The virtue of Thorstein Veblen, in his own fin de siècle time, was that he threw everything away and began over again. Thus he frequently achieved the clarity of the child who dared point to the manifest nakedness of the king.

There is no such innocent virtue in Bernard Rosenberg’s The Values of Veblen: A Critical Appraisal (Public Affairs Press, $2.50). Here nothing of moment is thrown away: Veblen’s critique of the business civilization of the nineties and early nineteen hundreds is taken as supremely relevant to the America of the nineteen fifties. The book is tersely, sometimes epigrammatically, written, and the exposition of Veblen’s leading ideas is entirely competent. Nevertheless, in its spirit of bland and even blind acceptance, it is a very un-Veblenian performance. Despite the foreword of Max Lerner, who insists that Professor Rosenberg has subjected Veblen to a real grilling, The Values of Veblen is a latter-day Mandarin’s obeisance to the Master.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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The virtue of Thorstein Veblen, in his own fin de siècle time, was that he threw everything away and began over again. Thus he frequently achieved the clarity of the child who dared point to the manifest nakedness of the king.

There is no such innocent virtue in Bernard Rosenberg’s The Values of Veblen: A Critical Appraisal (Public Affairs Press, $2.50). Here nothing of moment is thrown away: Veblen’s critique of the business civilization of the nineties and early nineteen hundreds is taken as supremely relevant to the America of the nineteen fifties. The book is tersely, sometimes epigrammatically, written, and the exposition of Veblen’s leading ideas is entirely competent. Nevertheless, in its spirit of bland and even blind acceptance, it is a very un-Veblenian performance. Despite the foreword of Max Lerner, who insists that Professor Rosenberg has subjected Veblen to a real grilling, The Values of Veblen is a latter-day Mandarin’s obeisance to the Master.