[Freud's] views are remarkably similar to those of the great theorist of autocracy, Thomas Hobbes; for he, too, tried to build a s...ocial order on a psychology--and one emphasizing men's fears and passions. Just as Freud imagined that society began from a compact of the brothers who had slain their tyrant father and realized that only in union and renunciation could they avoid the war of all against all, so Hobbes saw men in the state of nature as engaged in ceaseless combat, with peace attainable only by renunciation of virtually all individual rights.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Though Veblen repeatedly criticized Marx's Hegelian metaphysics and dismissed as scientifically irrelevant not only his propaganda... but also his philosophical and speculative writings, he greatly admired Marx. He attributed hardly less hegemony than Marx had done to the way men get (and spend) a living; like Marx, he tended to regard politics, art, and religion as "superstructural" aspects of society. To be sure, where Marx is indignant, Veblen is ironic; where Marx speaks of the bourgeoisie, emphasizing their productive creative, but eventually exploitative role, Veblen speaks of the "kept classes," emphasizing their passivity and lack of contribution to industrial advance; and where Marx speaks of surplus value--a "natural rights" concept Veblen couldn't deride often enough--Veblen speaks of waste, a hardly less metaphysical category.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »