ABSTRACT
In 1911, Thorstein Veblen warned that a European war was imminent. The author of The Theory of the Leisure Class has suffered the fate of the messenger who brings bad news. Veblen's critics have had a field day, taking his words out of context, trying to show inconsistencies and confusion in his thinking. Veblen was indeed skeptical about our industrial organization and challenged every premise upon which our society is built—competitiveness, status-seeking, and patriotism, among others. Many disliked him because of his caustic comments about organized religion or his sarcasm about the uselessness of the "kept classes", but it is possible that he was most shunned because of his attitude toward women. He not only attracted women, but he thought women were pivotal to the creation of a healthy society. He has shown us, by cruel example, how a thinker lived life on his own terms in the rigidly conformist Victorian society, and survived.
