Thorstein VeblenThinkers

The Conservative is both the very poor, who cannot afford the effort of taking thought for the day after tomorrow and the very wealthy, who have small occasion to be discontented with the situation as it stands today.

Conspicuous consumption is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure.

Conspicuous wastefulness is a requirement present as a constraining norm selectively shaping and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful.

The Dog commends himself to our favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery.

Emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.

Habit is formed in response to a given stimulus and will necessarily affect the character of the response made to other stimuli. A modification of human nature at any one point is a modification of human nature as a whole.

Labor has the desire for pride and joy in doing good work, a sense of making or doing something beautiful or useful to be treated with dignity and respect as brother and sister.

Manners is an expression of the relation of status - a symbolic pantomime of mastery on the one hand and of subservience on the other.

Nationalism was born in iniquity and conceived in sin, and yet its spirit has never ceased to bend human institutions to the service of dissension and distress.

Veblenian dichotomy is a 'distinction between what veblen called 'institutions' and 'technology'.