ABSTRACT
The interpretation of Veblen offered in these pages emphasizes above all the ambiguity, even the internal contradictions, of his thought. Inconsistency, as Emerson said, need altogether a defect: it may reflect a complex and honest mind working on inherently difficult problems. Veblen was a reserved and idiosyncratic person, who expressed, in a language all his own, attitudes toward American society which were then novel and are today still unconventional. Veblen’s black-and-white juxtaposition of “savagery” and “barbarism” was in good part derived from the Populist atmosphere of the Middle West in the post-Civil War decades. Populism no doubt oversimplified Jefferson’s own outlook—one so complex that one can find in his letters precedent for a wide variety of positions. Veblen’s future impact on our thought will probably depend less on his specialized contributions than on the outcome of this debate about Populism and about political radicalism generally.
