ABSTRACT
We live in a time self-conscious about the way theory is constructed. How we are to even think about issues, let alone address them, is a question that haunts both the academy and the culture at large. As part of this debate, we are led to question and reconsider how we engage in or practice our economic theorizing. As we hope to demonstrate in this paper, we believe that reading Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class from a contemporary perspective will allow us to see not only an alternative economic theory but also a radically alternative practice of economic theorizing, the understanding of which is arrived at through understanding Veblen’s discursive practices, which are richly rhetorical.
