Veblenian and Neo-Marxian Perspectives on the Cultural Crisis of Late Capitalism

This chapter seeks to draw attention to the psychocultural consequences of the systemic late capitalist response to economic crises and to the need for a research agenda to delineate and evaluate these consequences. The work of Veblen and recent American neo-Marxists is suggested as the basis for a start toward developing this research agenda. I use the term neo-Marxism loosely to encompass a variety of scholars who share a common point of departure in Marx’s social theory, but insist that Marx’s categories do not capture the essential tendencies of existing capitalism and socialism (Brown, 1988, p. 9).