ABSTRACT
Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) was an extraordinary and outstanding American economist; unfortunately his works do not receive sufficient attention in economics today. Many evolutionary economists associate the birth of their discipline with Veblen's institutional economic theory, insofar as they often refer to his most prominent article ‘Why is economics not an evolutionary science?’ (1898). Veblen's article represents a warning to the community of economists at the end of the nineteenth century. He claimed the significant role of anthropological and evolutionary thought for the economic science.
The men of the sciences that are proud to own themselves ‘modern’ find fault with the economists for being still content to occupy themselves with repairing a structure and doctrines and maxims resting on natural rights, utilitarianism, and administrative expediency…. Economics is not an evolutionary science — by the confession of its spokesman; and the economists turn their eyes with something of envy and some sense of baffled emulation to these rivals that make broad their phylacteries with the legend, ‘Up to date.’
(Veblen 1898, pp. 374–375)