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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the distinction maintained between the employments proper to the several classes. The upper classes are by custom exempt or excluded from industrial occupations, and are reserved for certain employments to which a degree of honour attaches. Chief among the honourable employments in any feudal community is warfare; and priestly service is commonly second to warfare. If the barbarian community is not notably warlike, the priestly office may take the precedence, with that of the warrior second. But the rule holds with but slight exceptions that, whether warriors or priests, the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments, and this exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	27 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819929079
Langue	English

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THE THEORY OF THE LEISURE CLASS
by Thorstein Veblen
Chapter One ~~ Introductory
The institution of a leisure class is found in itsbest development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as,for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communitiesthe distinction between classes is very rigorously observed; andthe feature of most striking economic significance in these classdifferences is the distinction maintained between the employmentsproper to the several classes. The upper classes are by customexempt or excluded from industrial occupations, and are reservedfor certain employments to which a degree of honour attaches. Chiefamong the honourable employments in any feudal community iswarfare; and priestly service is commonly second to warfare. If thebarbarian community is not notably warlike, the priestly office maytake the precedence, with that of the warrior second. But the ruleholds with but slight exceptions that, whether warriors or priests,the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments, and thisexemption is the economic expression of their superior rank.Brahmin India affords a fair illustration of the industrialexemption of both these classes. In the communities belonging tothe higher barbarian culture there is a considerabledifferentiation of sub-classes within what may be comprehensivelycalled the leisure class; and there is a correspondingdifferentiation of employments between these sub-classes. Theleisure class as a whole comprises the noble and the priestlyclasses, together with much of their retinue. The occupations ofthe class are correspondingly diversified; but they have the commoneconomic characteristic of being non-industrial. Thesenon-industrial upper-class occupations may be roughly comprisedunder government, warfare, religious observances, and sports.
At an earlier, but not the earliest, stage ofbarbarism, the leisure class is found in a less differentiatedform. Neither the class distinctions nor the distinctions betweenleisure-class occupations are so minute and intricate. ThePolynesian islanders generally show this stage of the developmentin good form, with the exception that, owing to the absence oflarge game, hunting does not hold the usual place of honour intheir scheme of life. The Icelandic community in the time of theSagas also affords a fair instance. In such a community there is arigorous distinction between classes and between the occupationspeculiar to each class. Manual labour, industry, whatever has to dodirectly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is theexclusive occupation of the inferior class. This inferior classincludes slaves and other dependents, and ordinarily also all thewomen. If there are several grades of aristocracy, the women ofhigh rank are commonly exempt from industrial employment, or atleast from the more vulgar kinds of manual labour. The men of theupper classes are not only exempt, but by prescriptive custom theyare debarred, from all industrial occupations. The range ofemployments open to them is rigidly defined. As on the higher planealready spoken of, these employments are government, warfare,religious observances, and sports. These four lines of activitygovern the scheme of life of the upper classes, and for the highestrank— the kings or chieftains— these are the only kinds of activitythat custom or the common sense of the community will allow.Indeed, where the scheme is well developed even sports areaccounted doubtfully legitimate for the members of the highestrank. To the lower grades of the leisure class certain otheremployments are open, but they are employments that are subsidiaryto one or another of these typical leisure-class occupations. Suchare, for instance, the manufacture and care of arms andaccoutrements and of war canoes, the dressing and handling ofhorses, dogs, and hawks, the preparation of sacred apparatus, etc.The lower classes are excluded from these secondary honourableemployments, except from such as are plainly of an industrialcharacter and are only remotely related to the typicalleisure-class occupations.
If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarianculture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find theleisure class in fully developed form. But this lower barbarismshows the usages, motives, and circumstances out of which theinstitution of a leisure class has arisen, and indicates the stepsof its early growth. Nomadic hunting tribes in various parts of theworld illustrate these more primitive phases of thedifferentiation. Any one of the North American hunting tribes maybe taken as a convenient illustration. These tribes can scarcely besaid to have a defined leisure class. There is a differentiation offunction, and there is a distinction between classes on the basisof this difference of function, but the exemption of the superiorclass from work has not gone far enough to make the designation“leisure class” altogether applicable. The tribes belonging on thiseconomic level have carried the economic differentiation to thepoint at which a marked distinction is made between the occupationsof men and women, and this distinction is of an invidiouscharacter. In nearly all these tribes the women are, byprescriptive custom, held to those employments out of which theindustrial occupations proper develop at the next advance. The menare exempt from these vulgar employments and are reserved for war,hunting, sports, and devout observances. A very nice discriminationis ordinarily shown in this matter.
This division of labour coincides with thedistinction between the working and the leisure class as it appearsin the higher barbarian culture. As the diversification andspecialisation of employments proceed, the line of demarcation sodrawn comes to divide the industrial from the non-industrialemployments. The man's occupation as it stands at the earlierbarbarian stage is not the original out of which any appreciableportion of later industry has developed. In the later developmentit survives only in employments that are not classed as industrial,— war, politics, sports, learning, and the priestly office. Theonly notable exceptions are a portion of the fishery industry andcertain slight employments that are doubtfully to be classed asindustry; such as the manufacture of arms, toys, and sportinggoods. Virtually the whole range of industrial employments is anoutgrowth of what is classed as woman's work in the primitivebarbarian community.
The work of the men in the lower barbarian cultureis no less indispensable to the life of the group than the workdone by the women. It may even be that the men's work contributesas much to the food supply and the other necessary consumption ofthe group. Indeed, so obvious is this “productive” character of themen's work that in the conventional economic writings the hunter'swork is taken as the type of primitive industry. But such is notthe barbarian's sense of the matter. In his own eyes he is not alabourer, and he is not to be classed with the women in thisrespect; nor is his effort to be classed with the women's drudgery,as labour or industry, in such a sense as to admit of its beingconfounded with the latter. There is in all barbarian communities aprofound sense of the disparity between man's and woman's work. Hiswork may conduce to the maintenance of the group, but it is feltthat it does so through an excellence and an efficacy of a kindthat cannot without derogation be compared with the uneventfuldiligence of the women.
At a farther step backward in the cultural scale—among savage groups— the differentiation of employments is stillless elaborate and the invidious distinction between classes andemployments is less consistent and less rigorous. Unequivocalinstances of a primitive savage culture are hard to find. Few ofthese groups or communities that are classed as “savage” show notraces of regression from a more advanced cultural stage. But thereare groups— some of them apparently not the result ofretrogression— which show the traits of primitive savagery withsome fidelity. Their culture differs from that of the barbariancommunities in the absence of a leisure class and the absence, ingreat measure, of the animus or spiritual attitude on which theinstitution of a leisure class rests. These communities ofprimitive savages in which there is no hierarchy of economicclasses make up but a small and inconspicuous fraction of the humanrace. As good an instance of this phase of culture as may be had isafforded by the tribes of the Andamans, or by the Todas of theNilgiri Hills. The scheme of life of these groups at the time oftheir earliest contact with Europeans seems to have been nearlytypical, so far as regards the absence of a leisure class. As afurther instance might be cited the Ainu of Yezo, and, moredoubtfully, also some Bushman and Eskimo groups. Some Pueblocommunities are less confidently to be included in the same class.Most, if not all, of the communities here cited may well be casesof degeneration from a higher barbarism, rather than bearers of aculture that has never risen above its present level. If so, theyare for the present purpose to be taken with the allowance, butthey may serve none the less as evidence to the same effect as ifthey were really “primitive” populations.
These communities that are without a defined leisureclass resemble one another also in certain other features of theirsocial structure and manner of life. They are small groups and of asimple (archaic) structure; they are commonly peaceable andsedentary; they are poor; and individual ownership is not adominant feature of their economic system. At the same time it doesnot follow that these are the smallest of existing communities, orthat their social structure is in all respects the leastdifferentiated; nor does the class necessarily include allprimitive communities which have no defined system of individualownership. But it is to be noted that the class seems to includethe