Veblen's Instinct of Workmanship pg. 175-186

 Veblen here is continuing to help us understand how he views the shaping of human use of technology and workmanship.  A statement perhaps that best summarizes his views is, "therefore on the facts made use of in the industrial arts....and the immediate question is as to the bias or drift of the pecuniary culture as it affects the apprehension of facts serviceable for technological ends". Veblen's view is that facts are not just lying around to be picked up but are shaped by the culture and habit of thought that exist in the community at any given time.

I am curious to see if Veblen ever addresses mutations or when people decide to go against the habits of thought in their community? This seems to be such an important to how change occurs and is important to so many human stories we tell.

Veblen takes another stab at religion writing that, God throws a deeper shadow of ignobility over the material side of life, and makes any workmanlike preoccupation with industrial efficiency presumptively sinful" (pg. 178). In a similar context, he writes that, "in effect men and things come to be rated in terms of what they putatively are - their intrinsic character - rather than in terms of what they empirically will do" (pg. 179).

Veblen ends this chapter with a discussion that one may believe that his points are true with regards to the impact of the predatory culture on workmanship and serviceability but not true or at less far less true with regards to commercial culture and competitive system.   This chapter started with Veblen again writing that the common stock of culture and knowledge is available to everyone as a sort of "public good" and is drawn upon by members of the community as they go about their work. From this insight, Veblen argues that the predatory culture shapes the nature of knowledge and facts that are gained and sued by people in these communities for invidious distinctions as opposed to improving the serviceability of items. He ends the chapter by stating that the question now is what is the difference with commercial or post-predatory culture.

The frustration might be at this point that we still don't have a clear idea of how we move or evolve form one stage to another.  We also don't have a clear sense of how knowledge gain is achieved and how it grows upon itself. For someone who though a lot about evolutionary theory, in some ways, his writing exhibits a lot of static modeling and thinking as opposed to dynamics.