The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped ou...t of--career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.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 »
The product of mental labor--science--always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no r...elation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Fashion is the most intense expression of the phenomenon of neomania, which has grown ever since the birth of capitalism. Neomania... assumes that purchasing the new is the same as acquiring value.... If the purchase of a new garment coincides with the wearing out of an old one, then obviously there is no fashion. If a garment is worn beyond the moment of its natural replacement, there is pauperization. Fashion flourishes on surplus, when someone buys more than he or she needs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Any adequate analysis or (if I may use the term) rational reconstruction of the method of science must comprise the statement that... the scientist qua scientist accepts or rejects hypotheses; and further that an analysis of that statement would reveal it to entail that the scientist qua scientist makes value judgments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and ...lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,... Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us Whiles it was ours.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Value dwells not in particular will; It holds his estimate and dignity... As well wherein 'tis precious of itself As in the prizer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And Ahab said to Naboth, "Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will... give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money." But Naboth said to Ahab, "The LORD forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance." Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, "I will not give you my ancestral inheritance." He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »