ABSTRACT
This chapter examines race, ethnicity, gender, and imperialism in the US and less developed countries. It describes the evolution of laissez-faire capitalism from small firms to large limited liability corporations in the US, and the ideas of Thorstein Veblen regarding this society. Veblen focused on the forces in the economy that cause it to evolve and change, as well as the institutions—the culture, legal system, corporations, government, and other patterns of human interaction—that shape human actions in the economy. Veblen believed that economists should analyze the key processes that shape the economy and economic behavior. As US workers struggled with their lot under monopoly capitalism, a new type of exploitation was underway in less developed countries. More developed and militarily powerful countries in Europe along with the United States and Japan engaged in imperialism. The era of laissez-faire capitalism had come to an end, destroyed by the Great Depression and the Keynesian Revolution.
