Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class"

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929)

On Monday evening we will talk about two selections from "The Theory of the Leisure Class," first published in 1899 by Thorstein Veblen: the first introductory chapter and the chapter on "Conspicuous Consumption."

The eminent 20th-century economist John Kenneth Galbraith once wrote: "The nearest thing in the United States to an academic legend -- the equivalent of an F. Scott Fitzgerald in fiction or of the Barrymores in the theater -- is the legend of Thorstein Veblen."

Great Books in Year 2 of the Pandemic (2021)

In 2021 our group held discussions of these pieces:

January: "Prometheus Bound," by Aeschylus

February: "Of Friendship" and "Of Solitude" by Michel de Montaigne 

March: "Pensées" by Blaise Pascal

April: "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson 

May: No meeting 

June: "An Enemy of the People," by Henrik Ibsen

July: "The Value of Science," by Henri Poincaré

August: "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" by Walt Whitman 

September: "Democracy in America," by Alexis de Tocqueville 

October: "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death," by Sigmund Freud 

November: "The Secret Sharer," by Joseph Conrad

The meetings were held virtually, via Zoom, until September, when we resumed in-person programming at the library but with a virtual option.