ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate two prominent, enduring and related themes in Veblen’s writing. They are the presumed explanatory and normative role of the ‘instinct of workmanship’ and the alleged dichotomy between pecuniary and industrial motives. The character of this critique of the instinct of workmanship must be made clear. It is not derived from any distaste for the concept of instinct, or from a dislike of evolutionary or biological ideas in social science. This is not an external but an internal critique, in that important ideas in Veblen’s writing are evaluated principally in his own Darwinian and evolutionary terms.
