Abstract
The idea of a leisure class was popularized by Thorstein Veblen, whose Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) developed the social categories of pecuniary competition, conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption. Bukharin’s Economic Theory of the Leisure Class (1919) argued that marginal utility theory was the theoretical expression of the class of rentiers who had been eliminated from the process of production and were interested only in disposing of their incomes. In The Age of Uncertainty (1977) J.K. Galbraith argued for the continuing relevance of Veblen’s analysis. Modern sociologists, however, show little interest in the idea of a leisure class.
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Bibliography
Bukharin, N. 1919. The economic theory of the leisure class. New York: Monthly Review Press. 1972. (Originally published in Russian and first published in English in 1927).
Galbraith, J.K. 1977. The age of uncertainty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Veblen, T. 1899. The theory of the leisure class. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Veblen, T. 1936. What Veblen taught. In Selected writings of Thorstein Veblen, ed. W.C. Mitchell. New York: Viking Press.
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Stanković, F. (2018). Leisure Class. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_755
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_755
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