Veblen, Thorstein. 1923. [1967]. Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times. The Case of America. With an introduction by Robert Leckachman. Boston: Beacon Press.
Keyword: Absentee Ownership, Bussiness vs Industry
Veblen was trying to discover the movement of the group life in terms of ritual, ceremony and symbol by which objective and subjective inquiries promote the accumulative process of group actions that focus on the habitual practice of absentee ownership as a dominant instituition in modern capitalism.
For this analysis of absentee ownership accompanied by unearned income, there are three explanatory patterns: state, credit and industrial technology. Through the ritual and ceremony of credit and power, the operation of material industry is continuouslysubordinated to the necessity of state integrity and free income accruing to abentee ownership.
In this unfolding situation, expanding credits and rising prices will permanently intrench the absnetee ownership with increasingly curtailing production(sabotage) to support their pecuniary structure(differential accmulation) at the expense of output, even well-being of underlying population. Apparently, this development contributes to the rise in nationalistic rivalry that leads to the game of mutual defeat, which implies an increasing margin of frustration and the potetial overturn.
Hence, when bussiness methods are being extended over more apects of group acitivities, the bussiness man, whose absentee ownership serves to matain the dominant heritage of private property, in the meantime becomes the servant of machines and workers.
Veblen, Thorstein. 1908. On the Nature of Capital. Quarterly Journal of Economics XXII (4, August): 517-542.
Keyword: Knowledge, Machine, Ownership
Knowledge is a commual product.
The accessibility of exited technological knowledge is necessary for the production of a livelihood.
The effective use of knowledge requires the possession of material equipment.
Hence, the owner of machines take the advantage and dominant position in labour ralation.
Veblen, Thorstein. 1908. On the Nature of Capital: Investment, Intangible Assets, and the Pecuniary Magnate. Quarterly Journal of Economics XXIII (1, November): 104-136.
Keyword: Investment, Tangible and Intangible Asset
1)Certain effects of investment and the price system;
2)Intangible assets, their nature, derivation, and basis;
3)Tangible and intangible assets distinct, but mutually convertible;
4)Dependence of all assets on industrial production;
5)Non-capitalizable income from assets;
6)Place and function of the “Pecuniary Magnate”;
7)“Timeless” gains from the use of (large) capital and the source of that;
8)Consequences for ordinary business men and ordinary profits.
