Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The concept of the leisure class was introduced by Thorstein Veblen in his Theory of the Leisure Class (1899). Leisure classes here consist of those people who, due to their social position, can afford to abstain from productive work and live on other people's labor. They confine themselves to non-industrial occupations like “government, warfare, religious observances, and sports.” Their income is sourced from exploitation of industrial classes that are subdued by the leisure class's superior “pecuniary prowess.” In order to assert their position they have to be visibly idle. Their leisure practices do not only demonstrate momentary inactivity, but often display skills that serve as evidence of past abstention from work – higher learning and accomplishment in gentlemanly sports, for example, count as evidence for habitual non-productivity. Positional claims are further asserted by wasteful “conspicuous consumption” of high-status goods and by vicarious leisure of family members, guests, minions, and footmen. Conspicuous consumption of high-priced goods is a form of “vicarious leisure” in which other people's labor time is taken up for the production of goods of ostensibly no practical use. Leisure class fashion, too, expresses contempt for productive activity (e.g., by deliberately limiting the movements of the wearer). Apart from obstructing industrial progress by the wasteful ... log in or subscribe to read full text