The Theory of the Leisure Class

Thorstein Veblen’s analysis of how the wealthy display their wealth — through “conspicuous consumption” and “conspicuous leisure”, phrases the book put into the language — was published in 1899. It is a work of economics written as anthropology and satire, and it has never stopped being quoted.

Veblen’s argument is that the leisure class is a survival of predatory culture: where a barbarian chief demonstrated his worth by exploit and trophy, his modern successor demonstrates it by waste — by consuming what he cannot use and by employing people to do nothing useful. From that single idea he reads dress, sport, gambling, learning, devout observance, the keeping of servants and the fashion for lawns, in a deadpan he never once breaks.