Inscribed by the author in pencil on the front free endaper: "John S. Mayfield, Thornstein Veblen, April 1924". John S. Mayfield (1904–1983) was an American bibliophile and collector who was curator of the manuscript and rare book department at the Syracuse University Library in the 1960s. His collection of Algernon Charles Swinburne first editions and manuscripts was considered one of the most complete and is now held by Georgetown University, Washigton D. C. Mayfield's bookplate is pasted onto the jacket's front flap. Originally published by Macmillan in 1899, Norwegian-American professor Thorstein Veblen's first and most successful work was written as a serious economic analysis of contemporary America, but after William Dean Howells gave the book a rave review as a social satire, it became a best-seller. "Into it he poured all the acidulous ideas and fantastic terminology that had been simmering in his mind for years. It was a savage attack upon the business class and their pecuniary values, half concealed behind an elaborate screenwork of irony, mystification and polysyllabic learning" (DAB). "The treatise is essentially an analysis of the latent functions of 'conspicuous consumption' and 'conspicuous waste' as symbols of upper-class status and as competitive methods of enhancing individual prestige. Veblen's term 'conspicuous consumption' has become part of everyday language" (IESS) and in modern economy Veblen goods are those whose demand increases in proportion to their price, in contradiction with the law of demand. This copy is a third printing of the edition published by Huebsch (now Viking Press), which was first published in 1918.
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