‘Workmanship comes to be confused with salesmanship, until tact, effrontery and prevarication have come to serve as a standard of efficiency, and unearned gain is accepted as the measure of productiveness.’
The Instinct of Workmanship explores the relationship between human instincts and the industrial arts. Veblen theorizes that workmanship is rooted in an instinctual desire to produce things well. Yet modern business culture distorts the desire for excellence in workmanship through the pursuit of profit and status. Insightful and original, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, capitalism, and social theory.
Thorstein Veblen was an American economist and social scientist who made important contributions to the study of economic institutions and the study of social class. He is best known for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class which introduced the term “conspicuous consumption”.