V for Veblen


"With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper”

"In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth.”

"The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development in man's moral nature”

"All business sagacity reduces itself in the last analysis to judicious use of sabotage.

"In point of substantial merit the law school belongs in the modern university no more than a school of fencing or dancing”

“The walking stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure”

"Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure"

"The propensity for emulation": das stimmt, Herr Veblen. Lemmings, in other words, links oder rechts.