Leisure class- still important today

This week we discussed Thorstein Veblen’s criticism of neoclassical economists. Veblen was trying to make people aware that production was a group effort and that no one person did anything completely on their own. According to Veblen, neoclassical economists created a loophole for capitalists that allowed them to unfairly keep the profits from production, when in reality they were not doing much to deserve any of the profits. Capitalists were just one part of the process. At times they were not even responsible for overseeing the work that was going on in their corporations. Instead they hired managers to do the work they should have been doing, the work they were getting compensated for, for them.

            When we talked about the leisure class on Wednesday it became clear to me that in many ways our society has not changed much since Veblen’s time. Veblen had accused his generation of praising and upholding the leisure class as role models for society. But unfortunately these people were among the least to contribute to the common good. Yet this same kind of praise for the leisure class is still happening today. Paris Hilton was an example, given to us by Dr. Gannon, of a modern leisure class star. Paris Hilton is a women who spends money she has inherited, but does not even have a job and yet is always in the news. She is like the embodiment of the words “rich and famous”. She has money she didn’t have to work for and she spends it frivolously. Unlike other people who are working hard five days out of the week and are struggling to have money left over to buy a few pleasurable goods.

 

            Although we continually praise the leisure class today, people are still making some of Veblen’s arguments. There are still people who are attempting to drive home the point that production is a community effort. Dr. Gannon provided us with another example by telling us of the “You didn’t build that” speech President Obama gave in the 2012 election. (Click the link to hear the clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ZO7XOpwa8 ) Within the speech Obama makes an argument similar to Veblen’s in that he says that the men on top are not the actual producers of the goods they get so rich off of.

            The reading in Appleby this week also dived further into some of the history of the big well-known capitalists and how they came to power. Appleby describes how many of the capitalists rose to fame, some of the very people, who were a part of Veblen’s leisure class. Appleby in her own way reinforces some of the arguments made by Veblen. She kind of gives reason as to why Americans have continued to lift up the leisure and wealthy class. According to Appleby Americans were encouraged to spend and buy goods just so they could show their belongings off to those around them. Americans were obsessed with the idea of just keeping up with the latest thing aka ‘keeping up with the Joneses”. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

            The scariest thing about this week’s discussion was that it revealed to me that we give the leisure class their real power. If people ignored this particular class, didn’t pay them so much attention, and definitely didn’t lift them up for spending frivolously we might be shocked to see how our society would change. So long as we praise the individual we will miss out on seeing the effort put forth by many. So long as we do that there is no guarantee that everyone will get an equal share of the profits made from their effort.