Abstract
When scholars become enchanted with Veblen’s ideas or prose style or both, they proclaim that everyone who is not yet a Veblenian ought to become one, that his ideas continue to speak a language which illuminates our own concerns as much as it did his readers circa 1900, and that his peculiar but fructuous mixture of philosophical acumen with down-to-earth economic reasoning can be found in no other source. Ever since Max Lerner brought forth The Portable Veblen in 1948—surely the most visible vehicle for disseminating his work for several decades—a reliable group of readers in the social sciences has sung the praises of this surly Norwegian from Wisconsin. He is what one well-known expositor called "a genius and a failure" (Diggins 1999: xi). And thanks to Transaction Publishers, readers who wish to determine how much the genius triumphed over the failure can read any of his books, all of them still in print.
Charles Camic is a notably meticulous intellectual historian and sociologist of ideas, and with his colleague Geoffrey Hodgson, an accomplished British historian, has provided a stimulating introduction to an unusually comprehensive collection of Veblen’s writings. Their goals in assembling this substantial book were several: to show that Veblen’s early education as a philosopher (with a Yale dissertation on Kant, his second publication being "Kant’s Critique of Judgment" in 1884) influenced his later work more than is usually thought; that earlier biographical treatments (they disparage Joseph Dorfman’s canonical work, and ignore Diggins’ popular study) have been superceded by specialists’ investigations in the recent past; and that Veblen’s theoretical commitment to Darwinism, instinct-habit theory, his critique of neoclassical economics’ dependence on homo oeconomicus, his enthusiastic meshing of James’ and Peirce’s pragmatism with what became "institutional economics"—all have once again flowed into current conversations across a number of disciplines. In short, Veblen, in fashion, out of fashion, back into fashion, once again requires careful study, and their volume aims to give its readers all the material one would need to do that. Toward this end they even provide a tripartite bibliography that includes all of Veblen’s published writing, a handy list of the books to which Veblen himself appealed in his work, and a longer reference list of works to which Camic and Hodgson refer in their 39-page introduction. One only wishes that the book were cheaper and in paperback, for it has surely become the single most valuable book to consult when coming to terms with this hyper-creative and troubling thinker.
Veblen wrote far ahead of his time, which many of his contemporaries, especially the more privileged, found intensely irritating. For instance, he published "The Economic Theory of Woman’s Dress" in Popular Science Monthly (December 1894) where he lists what he calls "the cardinal principles" of his theory: (1)”Expensiveness…apparel must be uneconomical; (2) Novelty: Womans’ apparel must afford prima facie evidence of having been worn but for a relatively short time…; (3) Ineptitude: It must afford prima facie evidence of incapacitating the wearer for any gainful occupation” (pp. 102-03). He also published "The Barbarian Status of Women" in the fourth year of the AJS (January 1899), where he recounts the history of marriage from its very beginnings: "This form of marriage, or of ownership, by which the man becomes the head of the household, the owner of the woman, and the owner and discretionary consumer of the household’s output of consumable goods, does not of necessity imply a patriarchal system of consanguinity" (p. 185)—an observation that would contradict what undergraduates are often taught today. He read the existing anthropological and historical accounts carefully and formulated his own notions, just as he did when explaining Kant, Gustav Schmoller’s historical economics, Antonio Labriola’s communist theorizing, Gabriel Tarde’s Social Laws, Lester Ward’s Pure Sociology, and dozens of other authors and topics which by today’s standards of scholarship seem more the work of a large research team than of a single thinker. Perhaps his wide-angle lens itself offers as much a lesson in how to carry out scholarly work as do his famous ideas about business enterprise, imperialism, university governance, or consumption patterns among the filthy rich.