VEBLEN, Thorstein.
An inquiry into the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation. New York, Macmillan, 1917.
8vo, pp. iii-xiii, [1 blank], [2], 367, [1 blank], [6, advertisements]; an excellent copy, partially unopened in original green cloth, corners slightly rubbed, spine gilt, slightly dull; gift inscription to front free endpaper in pencil dated June 14 1917; contemporary and later booksellers’ tickets to front and rear pastedowns.
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An inquiry into the nature of peace and the terms of its perpetuation.
First edition. Veblen considers the situations in Germany and England during the First World War and projects the economic consequences of plenty in peacetime, which he frames as the rise of the middle-class ‘gentleman’, based on a model of Victorian English, peacetime gentlemanliness. This envisages a class-based, competitive system, which cannot be indefinitely sustained since it is limited, while at the same time being supported, paradoxically, by ‘pecuniary superstitions’ such as the belief in property ownership. Veblen thus foreshadows the caustic pessimism of his Absentee ownership (1923), which saw a return to the oppressive systems of past eras.