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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. How does Veblen say the laboring classes in an agricultural society see work?

2. Which employments were associated with a lower status?

3. What does Veblen say is the motive for ownership?

4. What clothes should members of the leisure class wear?

5. What does Veblen say happens as technology progresses?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are churches and ornate buildings related to conspicuous waste?

2. How does the leisure class view work?

3. What was the earliest form of ownership?

4. What is emulation, and how does it function in society?

5. How does wealth stratify society?

6. What is the relationship between the necessities of life and an individual's standard of living?

7. What status is attributed to scholars?

8. How have women's clothes demonstrated that the woman does not engage in productive employment?

9. What are the two conditions necessary for the development of the leisure class?

10. How does style ensure conspicuous waste?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How are women of the leisure class different from men? How are their roles and responsibilities different? How are they the same? Do women express traits of other classes besides the leisure class? If so, what are those traits.

Essay Topic 2

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 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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