really hoping whale-embroidered khakis are NOT in our DNA

i also was deeply interested in veblen's discussion on women, their role in labor, and their identity. maybe this is just because so far veblen is one of the few theorists who has addressed the fact that all of these grand, generic statements made about "men" and "society"…might not be the same for women. i agree with some of chris's criticism that veblen really oversimplifies the origins of "barbarianism" and aggression within tribe=property ownership=leisure class. where veblen errs, i see his mistakes as more a part of the discourse of colonialism and early anthropology that was only beginning to grasp at patterns in human nature. it's part racist, part ridiculously inaccurate, and mostly colored by the capitalist-patriarchist driven world that the writer comes from.

however, i think i can appreciate that, seeing as this was published in 1912, it's remarkably progressive in its attempt to understand the origins of modern western society. veblen doesn't have the space or the resources to trace all of human history back in order to understand why or how we developed this modern sense of ownership equated with virtue, but he is quite astute at recognizing how it has operated in his own recent past and in his contemporary world. he's critical of the inherently "earned" right of the leisure class to be indolent, and he's critical of the devaluing of women's work, and for these two aspects, i think veblen should be commended. veblen, you have my vote. or you would, if you were living.

jenn has made me now want to go back and read that essay on women's fashions, especially since i am now developing my final project on fashion, consumerism and class (kathy, don't worry--i found over 40 academic sources already!). but one quote that seems to sum up the problem that we grapple with in capitalist society is the never-ending need to consume, and the distinct connection to class. the more we make, the more we spend. veblen says "if…the incentive to accumulation were the want of subsistence or of physical comfort, then the aggregate economic wants of a community might be conceivably be satisfied at some point in the advance of industrial efficiency; but since the struggle is substantially a race for reputability on the basis of an invidious comparison, no approach to definitive attainment is possible" (32).

either human nature makes us incapable of ever ceasing to want more, or else capitalism can only survive by teaching us to want more. or else, capitalism is able to survive because it is a system that cruelly and cleverly plays off our human need to want, and if such is the case, then how can the naysayers of capitalism object to what feeds so naturally into our biology? is capitalism in our DNA and if so, can we change it? or find a balance?

on a side note: veblen also helped me realize the origins of a prejudice i've had for many years against preppy guys. my prejudice has always been that guys who wear vineyard vines polo shirts and whale-embroidered khakis, or loafers without socks, just evoke, like a plastic Ken doll, impotence, because they seem like they've never struggled or had to provide for themselves. so, for example, in the wild, instead of protecting you, they'd just get eaten by a bear or something, because when that's happening, your trust fund isn't really going to help you. but to be fair, on the flip side, there are plenty of poor guys who have never schlepped a day in their lives, so even though i stand by much of my original viewpoint, i allow that it's too general, like veblen's generalizations, to be used absolutely.