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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Veblen see as evidence of the martial spirit in the leisure class?

2. Where does Veblen say gambling originated?

3. What does Veblen mean by the terms "social inertia" and "conservatism"?

4. What age does Veblen say worshiping corresponds to?

5. Natural selection of social structure is influenced by the natural selection of what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the study of the classics and classical languages change over time?

2. What traits in men are required for the success of a community, in Veblen's description?

3. What are the effects of devout observances?

4. What is martial spirit, and which classes demonstrate it?

5. How do men and women of the industrial classes feel and react to pecuniary pressures?

6. Where does Veblen believe the desire to gamble originates?

7. How are leisure-class women like members of the clergy?

8. How do sports relate to the fighting spirit?

9. How do institutions change?

10. How does education form the leisure class?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How useful is the term "the leisure class"? Does it describe everyone with any disposable income? Is it really a synonym for the upper class? Is it a synonym for the middle class?

Essay Topic 2

Are status symbols necessary? If social status is a fact of life for middle-class (leisure-class) people in industrial society, are status symbols necessities, or are they luxuries? Is Veblen being puritanical to see them as luxuries when pragmatically they are requirements for participation in culture?

Essay Topic 3

The master-slave dialectic posits that the masters need the slaves and that the slaves cannot function in an organized way without the masters. But Veblen's theories of vicarious leisure and vicarious consumption describe the servant class as mere evidence of the wealth of the master class. What economic agency does Veblen attribute to the servant class? Does the servant class make itself necessary to the leisure class?

(see the answer keys)

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