Thorstein Veblen - Veblen's Intellectual Legacy

Veblen's Intellectual Legacy

In spite of difficulties of sometimes archaic language, caused in large part by Veblen's struggles with the terminology of unilinear evolution and of biological determination of social variation that still dominated social thought when he began to write, Veblen's work remains relevant, and not simply for the phrase “conspicuous consumption”. His evolutionary approach to the study of economic systems is once again in vogue and his model of recurring conflict between the existing order and new ways can be of great value in understanding the new global economy.

The handicap principle of evolutionary sexual selection is often compared to Veblen's “conspicuous consumption”.

Veblen, as noted, is regarded as one of the co-founders (with John R. Commons, Wesley C. Mitchell, and others) of the American school of institutional economics. Present-day practitioners who adhere to this school organise themselves in the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE) and the Association for Institutional Economics (AFIT). AFEE gives an annual Veblen-Commons (see John R. Commons) award for work in Institutional Economics and publishes the Journal of Economic Issues. Some unaligned practitioners include theorists of the concept of "differential accumulation".

Veblen is cited in works of feminist economists.

Veblen's work has also often been cited in American literary works. He is featured in The Big Money by John Dos Passos and mentioned in Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

One of Veblen's Ph.D. students was George W. Stocking, Sr., a pioneer in the emerging field of industrial organization economics.