Veblen’s Instinct of Workmanship pg. 131-138

By

 Veblen ends this chapter 3 with a discussion of the borrowing of technology across cultures. He also notes that a degree of religious or magical thinking is often associated with many prehistoric cultures. Here again he notes the problem that this causes with the mechanical arts although less so with the agricultural and animal arts. He then speculated that certain cultures borrowing from others may not carry over the religious or spiritual or magical elements.  Thus unencumbered borrowing in Veblen's mind would lead to more improvements in mechanical arts as they are tied into the problems of spiritual elements and more focused on matter of fact application. 


It is hard not to see in this book so far that Veblen was very much arguing that 1) technological improvement was a key to human development and growth, 2) technological development was inhibited by imbecile institutions such as religious or spiritual practices versus matter of fact viewpoints, 3) spiritual or magical practices were less harmful in agriculture and husbandry practices than the mechanical arts. Overall, this leads to the notion that there is an incipient Veblen dichotomy that was to be later picked up by Clarence Ayres that divided the world between technology (industry) and institutions and practices. I don’t believe one can argue that all institutions were inherently bad however and this may be where the Ayresian version went wrong as argued by later neo-institutionalists such as Foster, Bush and Tool.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 234-240

By
 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 ...
Read more

Veblen's Instinct of Workmanship pg. 240-253

By
  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...
Read more

Veblens Instinct of Workmanship pg. 231-234

By
 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 t...
Read more