Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) was an American economist and social critic, born to Norwegian immigrant farmers in Wisconsin and raised in Minnesota. After a doctorate at Yale he was unable to find a post for seven years, and his later academic career, at Chicago, Stanford, Missouri and the New School for Social Research, was repeatedly cut short by his indifference to teaching and his irregular private life. The Theory of the Leisure Class, published in 1899, introduced conspicuous consumption and made him famous; The Theory of Business Enterprise, The Instinct of Workmanship and Absentee Ownership followed. He died in a cabin near Palo Alto.