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Introduction
Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) is best remembered as an exceptionally skilled critic. C. Wright Mills called him “the best critic of America that America has produced” [Mills, 1953, vi]. Joseph Spengler likened him to a one-man “Ministry of Disturbance” [1972, 861]. Rick Tilman echoed these sentiments decades later when he wrote that Veblen “was arguably the most original and penetrating economist and social critic that the United States has produced” [Tilman, 1992, ix]. As it stands, Veblen’s reputation rests on his formidable assault on conventional thinking, as well as on his ability to coin a few memorable phrases such as “conspicuous consumption.”
But to conceive of Veblen as only a critic is a mistake. As E. K. Hunt noted, Veblen was also “probably the most significant, original and profound social theorist in American history” [Hunt, 1979, 300]. Veblen did not engage in criticism just for the sake of criticism; his purpose was to explain why a new approach to economics was needed. Veblen’s ultimate objective was to re-invent the discipline of economics.