Why is there Socialism in the United States? Social Science and Industrial Society in Thorstein Veblen’s Line of Thought

Abstract

The article deals with Veblen’s vision of social conflict to critically reexamine his political thought. Retracing his intellectual biography, it focuses on three connected aspects: a twofold vision of social conflict that emerges from his reinvention of evolutionism; his reading of socialism in an industrial society; the relevance of an evolutionary concept of technology in order to understand new forms of conflict within the transition to a cooperative working process that is associated with scientific organization and planning. These elements are used to highlight Veblen’s stance towards Progressive Era social sciences and towards institutional and intellectual attempts to control the vagaries and conflicts of industrial capitalism.