Blackwell Reference Online

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Thorstein Veblen, US economist and social theorist, argued for an evolutionary-institutionalist approach to social development. History is a non-teleological process in which, by quasi-Darwinian selection, institutions survive according to their fit with the current “state of the industrial arts.” Inert institutions inhibit further technological progress beyond the state they are adapted to facilitate. In this context, Veblen developed the theory of latecomer advantages and technological borrowing. Veblen sees two driving motivational forces in the development of technology and institutions. The first, more primordial, is the instinct of workmanship , which motivates cooperative productive work for the good of the community. Having been dominant in a peaceful, egalitarian, and matriarchal age of savagery , it has been subdued by the second motive, the predatory instinct , seeking competitive advantage for the individual at the cost of others in a warlike and patriarchal barbaric age . In this setting, a non-productive leisure class dominates the productive industrial classes of farmers, workers, craftsmen, and technicians. This dominance is perpetuated in modern capitalism, although in a pacified form. Cultural dominance lies with a leisure class of rentiers and absentee owners and industry is dominated by a managerially active business class. While industrial workers and particularly ... log in or subscribe to read full text