The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other EssaysVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays
Veblen, Thorstein
Economics; Science
Should the technological situation, the state of the industrial arts, be
such as to throw the strategic emphasis on manual labor, on workmanlike
skill and application, and if at the same time the growth of population
has made land relatively scarce, or hostile contact with other
communities has made it impracticable for members of the community to
range freely over outlying tracts, then it would be expected that the
growth of ownership should take the direction primarily of slavery, or
of some equivalent form of servitude, so effecting a naive and direct
monopolistic control of the current knowledge of ways and means.[5]
Whereas if the development has taken such a turn, and the community is
so placed as to make the quest of a livelihood a matter of the natural
increase of flocks and herds, then it should reasonably be expected that
these items of equipment will be the chief and primary subject of
property rights. In point of fact, it appears that a pastoral culture
commonly involves also some degree of servitude, along with the
ownership of flocks and herds.
Under different circumstances the mechanical appliances of industry, or
the tillable land, might come into the position of strategic advantage,
and might come in for the foremost place in men's consideration as
objects of ownership. The evidence afforded by the known (relatively)
primitive cultures and communities seems to indicate that slaves and
cattle have in this way come into the primacy as objects of ownership at
an earlier period in the growth of material civilisation than land or
the mechanical appliances. And it seems similarly evident--more so,
indeed--that land has on the whole preceded the mechanical equipment as
the stronghold of ownership and the means of engrossing the community's
industrial efficiency.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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