The theme of this reading is that it is describing how people look towards leisure, they have spending patterns that they are able to achieve status that they want. They are defining themselves on things that they have. The industrial revolution was increasing and what I researched it became be part of the " Second Industrial Revolution". It was able to form classes to show how leisure was being used. It began showing the leisure time of the working class and middle class. The industrialization was beginning to increase more and more people were working, but those who were rich have more leisure time to buy expensive things to achieve a certain status. It started to involve economic theories such as men who are rich drink alcohol, but men who constantly drink, but it becomes an addiction. Together it involves on what people own by the goods it simply shows how people actually live their lives.
Thorstein Veblen was born in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin and his parents were immigrants who were Norwegian, he then grew up in rural Minnesota. Where he graduated from Carleton College in Northfield. Thorstein did not learn English until he went to school. But he was able to go to the University of Chicago where he had taught political economy. He ended up becoming one of the first Academics to really examine the relationship between consumption and the wealth in the society. He also ended up writing The Theory of Leisure Class (1899). While going through his education he became an economist and sociologist. He attended John Hopkins to study philosophy and while going to Yale University he received a Ph.D from Yale in 1884. He was a well educated man that went to school to teach and learn. Though he had all the education he needed it had made several conflicts for him to receive a descent job and he was fired from one of them. Knowing all of the education that he had as a man of knowledge of economics, he ended up dying in 1929 at Melno Park in California after the time the New York stock market crashed.
Ideas that stood out to me was that it was mentioning the leisure that a person has as being rich and the working class. I thought it was interesting that it was mentioning this idea, because it was mentioning that the people who are rich have more leisure time then those who constantly work. This is really true, because those who are rich are able to live a life without worries when people who work they have worries about jobs and caring for families. This is a concept to show how rich truly do have more leisure time then some people. I like how they mentioned how status is achieved and just by having certain kinds of goods such as expensive shows a persons status and how they live. I think that that you can tell how a person acts or dresses with the goods and it made me think about stereotyping.
Generating ideas that I have formed from this idea is that it made me think about the men and women during this time period. It had mentioned that woman did not have more leisure time then men had, because even though men worked the women stayed home cleaned, took care of children, and cooked. It really made me think about their lives, because the article mentioned the use of alcohol that men used. The working men had stressed over work which led to drinking and having addiction. Since they were addicted to the substance they became violent and aggressive, which made me think about the how the children and the wives lived their lives. It led to me thinking that for those who were working class how many children or even wives went through pain because of the men, and for the rich it just seemed to me that they were just happy. They had happy families and the men in those families just really drink, because of their status. They did it for fun such as parties etc... but it truly shows the differences between the two classes.
Parallels that I could make from this is comparing how we use goods to show status. Believe it or not we still buy the most expensive things to achieve some kind of status. It has been around for years it seems like. It is true the more things people have tends to be the case of how they live or as a person. We end up seeing how people dress and we form judgement such as are they rich, snobby, a good person etc... we have developed stereotyping against each other. This concept has been around for years it feels like. It just seems like nothing is really new, the history of leisure and economics still caries on. When this idea caries on it feels like we are against people who have more things then others, but we do not accept the concept of being happy with what we have. This concept can be for the working class and the rich. The working class can accept to have a family and be alive, but the rich can not spend money constantly. They can learn to be happy without the material things in life that is provided for them, but for some buying something new always makes them happy. Another idea came to me and it was the use of alcohol, because I knew some men were aggressive from it and it carries on also. Men who work are addicted and rich they do it for fun still, it is another concept that carries on today. Alcohol is still abusive in our society, but it had affected men, women and for people who are underage. It is very shocking to know alcohol had a long history that carried on back in 1902 to 2012. It just surprising it carried so long and that it is still abusive for those who are at risk of violence or health issues from it.
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