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About Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein B. Veblen

 

Elegant Technology:

The economics of elegant technology are based on the thinking of Thorstein Bunde Veblen
...who better than the inventor of the terms "conspicuous waste" and "conspicuous consumption" to provide a starting point for a more environmentally-safe economics?
...now that those two phenomenon threaten to destroy us all

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farmhouse

 

Thorstein Veblen is a hard writer to study

..his writings themselves are difficult
...he wrote virtually without footnotes
....and the scholarship is uneven ranging from near worship to bitter criticism

See for yourself--a small collection of his writings is available at this site.

Scholars have mostly debated the origin of his ideas

Fortunately, his childhood home in Minnesota has been recently restored and the process shed much light on the true origins of his thinking.

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Elegant Technology

 

Thorstein Bunde Veblen (TBV) is the genius who inspired, and gave substance to, most of the ideas contained in Elegant Technology--the book.

It was both inappropriate (in the sense that ET is not a work of scholarship on the life of TBV) and impossible (in the sense that all books must end) to give Veblen the appropriate credit he was due.

This is especially unfortunate because TBV, and his ideas, have become the subject renewed international interest. Since 1992, The International Thorstein Veblen Association (ITVA) has been formed and has held two conferences, and more interestingly, Veblen's Minnesota childhood home has been lovingly restored at great cost, effort, and expense.

Both events have combined to utterly shatter the previous 'scholarship' surrounding Veblen's life and ideas. More has been learned about TBV in the last five years than from everything written about him since his death in 1929.

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The restoration of the
Minnesota Farm

includes a 162 page pdf file, and two videos for those who cannot easily travel to Minnesota to view the evidence; plus several essays and letters from the family concerning their life on that farm.

VEBLEN FOR THE
NEW MILLENNIUM:
The restoration of Veblen's ideas

includes examples of modern Institutional Analysis (the kind of thinking perfected by TBV)

Correcting the history about TBV;

includes the BEST historical papers from the 1996 Internation Thorstein Veblen Association (ITVA) Convention


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