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The Theory of the Leisure Class is a book on economics and sociology by Thorstein Veblen, giving a detailed critique of conspicuous consumption (the spending of money on and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display the economic power of the income). First published in 1899, Veblen argues that the upper classes and the elite partake in conspicuous consumption and do nothing to contribute to the economy or to the production of the useful goods and services required for the functioning of society - instead it is the middle class and the working class that support the whole of society.
Part of the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World set.
This book has 170 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1899.
Production notes: This ebook of The Theory of the Leisure Class was published by Global Grey ebooks on the 10th March 2021. The artwork used for the cover is 'Intermission for a premiere at the Comédie-Française' by Édouard Joseph Dantan.
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