Ellen Rolfe News Today

Thorstein Veblen—from nearby Nerstrand, a Carleton grad—coined the term “conspicuous consumption,” spent seven years basically in hiding, and wrote a book that still drives economic thought 120 years after it was published.

Economist and social scientist Thorstein Veblen has been called one of America’s most original and creative thinkers. His highly acclaimed treatise “The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions” (1899) introduced the term “conspicuous consumption.” Veblen’s body of work remains seminal reading in understanding the modern consumer society and criticisms of capitalism. Thorstein Bunde Veblen was born on July 30, 1857, in Cato Township, Manitowoc...