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Veblens Instinct of workmanship pg 265 - 283

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 In this set of pages, Veblen continues his exploration of the transformation of various cultural and religious practices as the handicraft era of industry continues to evolve.  Veblen notes that the religious move is towards autonomy and more focus on the individual self and more in line with a protestant view as opposed to a catholic view of christianity. Another major movement that occurred during the handicraft era according to Veblen in political history and thought was the creation of nation states. Veblen sees the handicraft era as supplying the necessary means for large states to exist and for warmaking to be feasible on a large scale. Veblen is at pains to note that handicraft workers did not wish to subject themselves to the coercion of the nation state but rather this was a side effect of the price system and its principle of self-help.  Why? In essence according to Veblen, princes of states could buy from a larger catchment era the needs for war and could even borrow using
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Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 253-265

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Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 253-265  We continue this journey still in the chapter on the “Era of Handicraft’.  The next section of the book may be why some religious leaders did not appreciate the line of thinking that Veblen was taking.  He referred to several times about the “cult” of religion.  He also notes that religious and theological thinking dominated the nature of overall preconceptions of most people.  Further, academic inquiry was oriented around the question of “what hath God ordained” . In the handicraft era, that began to shift.  He begins with the good of “man” begins to become the preconception as opposed to the nature and needs of God. Hew rites in characteristic veblenian fashion that “the sentimental ground of conviction comes to the recognized serviceability of the ascertained facts for human use, rather than their conformity with the putative exigencies of a self centered divine will” One can see the shift that Veblen is claiming here and why he would get
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Veblen Instinct of Workmanship - A quick additional thought pg. 242

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 On page 242, we see Veblen express something like a hypothesis regarding human mastery of technology. He writes that, "The larger the available body of information of this character, and the more comprehensive and unremitting the share taken by the discipline of the machine process in the routine of daily life, therefore, the greater, other things equal, will be the rate of advance in the technological mastery of mechanical facts." Veblen is pointing to the importance of a "rate" in assessing the relative changes in a society's move from the handicraft era to the machine or mechanical era. Of "this character" to what is he referring to? Here we need to look at what he discussed above. He is referring to the fact that the machine world needs information that is not of a personal or anthropomorphic character. The faster this type of knowledge and information is stripped from the ideas or information of a community, the faster its rate of advance in the
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Veblen's Instinct of Workmanship pg. 240-253

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  This section continues Veblen's thinking regarding the evolution of the handicraft era.  The first point he wants to make is that the machine era requires a matter of fact and mechanical approach to work and workmanship as opposed to the era of human dexterity and high touch of the handicraft era. He also notes again how the crafts persons embody the nature of the economy in that era and convince many others that human craftsmanship is the best gauge upon which to assess society. He writs that,  “to serve the needs of this machine technology, therefore, the information which accumulates must in some measure be divested of its naive personal colouring by use and wont; and the degree in which this effect is had is a measure of the degree of availability of the resulting facts for the uses of the machine technology.” (Veblen, pg. 240, 1914). From this point, we observe the shift towards the machine age and perhaps of equal importance the price age.  As Veblen notes on page 243-244, 
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Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 234-240

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 This section starts with Veblen stating that in the handicraft era, the individual craftsman is again the dominant force in the economy.  This in turn implies three key facts that are important to Veblen.  The first key fact is that the instinct of workmanship is an important element in how humans think and act again. we can perhaps think here that the instinct of workmanship is less contaminated by other instincts in the handicraft era. Another key piece is that the "common stock of technological knowledge" is open to all and easily mastered by the individual crafts person. If we recall, Veblen wrote that this technological knowledge is always held in commons by all people but in certain eras it is dominated by a small group of individuals whereas in the handicraft era it is shared by many crafts people. The final key fact is that craft persons can easily understand technical and natural forces as they need to and machines are devised to be in accordance with the needs of c
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Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 231-234

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 Chapter 11, the Era of Handicraft pg. 231-234 Veblen starts this chapter by noting that in his mind Eruope had not been characterized by large scale emperors but generally smaller fiefdoms and kingdoms unlike Asia for example. He felt that the Roman Empire was more of a southern European tradition.  Western and northern Europe developed with small scale industry and the handicraft system in the middle ages in particular.  This eventually changed over time as we have already explored as the technology changed and it became impractical for every small handicraft merchant to own capital. In the handicraft era, the habit was that price should be based on a labor theory of value but this changed to become based on freedom between buyer and seller as the capital intensive nature of industry changed. Over time, the owners became a smaller class of people and the workers, who were originally handicraft based, came under the dominion of the owners of capital.   This marked the transition from
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Veblen Workmanship pg. 219-230

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  This last section ends the chapter and a discussion of the competitive system.  Veblen defines a competitive system as: Pecuniary rivalry and contention Price system Dominated by mechanic industries Standardized consumption Large scale industries Material equipment held in private hands Technological knowledge is held in a few specialized hands although it belongs to the entire community Owners of the necessary equipment control the labor force. Veblen then goes on to talk of the “captains of industry”. He asserts that these people who have in the past been technologically aware are not anymore. No longer are they aware of technology or perhaps even care to be aware of technology. The capitan does realize the need for industrial control and therefore begins to train and implement a new set of efficiency engineers. Yet, there remains an ongoing battle between workmanship and salesmanship even with these efficiency engineers. Vebeln also emphasizes here that a genetic account must be g
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