About the book: 1984 / The author is a prominent American economist and sociologist and is a representative of the critical, bourgeois-reformist trend in American political economy. Veblen's views are contradictory and combine criticism of many aspects of the capitalist mode of production with petty-bourgeois projectism and utopianism. Within the framework of capitalism, Veblen contrasted two groups: businessmen, engaged mainly in speculative operations, and technical specialists, without whom the functioning of the “industrial system” is impossible. Veblen considered the first group as reactionary and harmful to society and considered it necessary to remove it from material production. Veblen proposed transferring the leadership of the economy and the entire society to the production and technical intelligentsia. The author sharply criticized capitalism, financial oligarchy, and the leisure class. Published in Russian translation for the first time. Designed for researchers, teachers of social sciences, specialists in the field of bourgeois economic theories.