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The Engineers and the Price System

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Thorsten Veblen writes like a turn of the century lawyer with a snide, subtle, and wicked anger he humorously avoids concealing. His vision of American culture is so sound, so prescient, and so deeply irreverential towards all we hold dear, and he has much to teach us. I read this book because the introduction to The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul says this book is better. Also because I've been dazzled by Veblen's other works Conspicuous Consumption and The Theory of the Leisure Class. This book, originally published in 1919 or thereabouts, is witnessing the nascent Soviet Union from afar, and the corporate corruption, stilled and consolidated into the Federal Reserve, up close. He sees the wealthy status quo as irrelevant saboteurs (the first chapter defines this term, with his characteristic scrupulosity)to the vital economic health of the country, and decries the advent of corporate takeover. He proposes a 'Soviet of Technicians' which the more optimistic of us could claim as a prediction of the rise of the Sciences in America during the twentieth century. However the final chapter is interpreted in retrospect, it is nonetheless an important commentary about the dynamics between capital and technology during the turn of the century. The bitter anger of his repeated use of the term, just yet, says a lot about his laconic and profound turn of mind. Please, materialists, read Mr. Veblen and find your way out!!!