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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Veblen say happens as technology progresses?
(a) Men have more wives.
(b) Men have more time for activities beyond subsistence.
(c) Men have more time for prayer.
(d) Men have more children.

2. What distinction begins to be drawn as the group around the patron grows?
(a) Between upper-class and lower-class merchants.
(b) Between aristocratic and democratic.
(c) Between landed and monied gentry.
(d) Between noble and ignoble.

3. What happens when a community develops a standard of wealth?
(a) Anything beyond that level becomes meritorious.
(b) Society persecutes those below that level.
(c) Anything below that level becomes objectionable.
(d) Society bands together to care for those below that level.

4. Why do people spend more than they need for physical comfort?
(a) They want to impress their superiors.
(b) They need to stimulate their local economy.
(c) They conform to a code of decency.
(d) They cannot keep excess wealth.

5. Which employments were associated with a lower status?
(a) Diplomatic tasks.
(b) Subsistence tasks.
(c) Government tasks.
(d) Crafts.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Veblen say makes wealth desirable?

2. What kind of leisure is created by inheritance?

3. What distinction does Veblen say emerged between types of labor in cultures that had a leisure class?

4. What does Veblen say a person's possessions determine in ownership societies?

5. How does Veblen describe hunting in a predatory culture?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the different social classes distinguished?

2. Why do most people spend in excess of what is required for their physical comfort?

3. How does Veblen define leisure?

4. What do expensive clothes say about a person?

5. What was the earliest form of ownership?

6. How does the labor class view its work?

7. How does the individual consumer think of his conspicuous waste?

8. How does the leisure class view work?

9. How does wealth stratify society?

10. Where does the institution of a leisure class appear in the development of culture?

(see the answer keys)

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