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Similarities Between Veblen And Marx

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The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has witnessed the most ‘laissez-faire’ type of capitalism, especially in the US where capitalists compete with each other without considering anything other than their profits and this is when and where Thorstein Veblen lived and thus xyr perspective on the world very much influenced by this corrupted, unethical and exploitative environment and xe criticized the ongoing economic structure with wittiness in xyr works. Although Veblen hardly ever said anything on xyr personal side on the issue, many claimed that xe was an ‘American Marxist’. Even though that there are many similarities in their understanding of capitalism, there are also many points they clash.
Veblen and Marx agree on that capitalists, …show more content…

Xe conducted that in earlier ages when productivity was low and everyone had to work to survive, the instinct of workmanship was the source of pride and joy. The predatory instinct, which is exploitative, emerged with the very first surplus and this is also when the gender conflict also emerged as a result of women’s relative incapacity to use physical force in hunting and wars. So, the predatory instinct has increased its dominance when the predatory ones became the most powerful and important people in the society and plundering became the source of pride and joy then. Veblen carries xyr investigation one step further and claimed that capitalism, which is more modest than the other modes of production in terms of the relationship between exploiter and exploited could occur in Europe as a result of the relatively low patriarchal relations in Europe than anywhere else. Yet, no matter how silent or modest it is, exploitation and class conflict has increased tremendously under capitalism as a result of ‘freedom to buy’’ it gave. As Veblen conceptualized, emulative consumerism has become a defining feature of capitalism that woke up the predatory instinct also in workers. The more the jobs became unproductive, they need something else to make themselves happy, and buy more and more, especially as ‘conspicious consumption’, to raise their status in the society. Patriotic fervor is also an important point in Veblen to explain the instinct in workers which restrains them from revolution because of the Communist

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