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History of The Human Sciences 2002 Tilman 51 70
History of The Human Sciences 2002 Tilman 51 70
History of The Human Sciences 2002 Tilman 51 70
ABSTRACT
Despite their importance to the history of economics and social theory,
social scientists and historians pay little heed to the structural
similarities as well as the important divergences in the work of French-
man Emile Durkheim (18581917) and American Thorstein Veblen
(18571929). Consequently, this article places Durkheim and Veblen in
their social and historical context, and then (1) their epistemologies are
related to their use of cultural lag to explain the persistence of atavistic
continuities in the existing order, (2) their theories of social bonding and
integration are compared to explain the meaning as well as the structural
differences in their collectivism, and (3) these are linked with the
predictive power of their broader socioeconomic theories to forecast
the future of Western society. The two men made major contributions
to the human sciences and a historical retrospect by way of comparative
analysis illuminates these contributions.
INTRODUCTION
A vast literature interprets the life and work of Frenchman Emile Durkheim
(18581917) and American Thorstein Veblen (18571929), respectively, but
no systematic comparison of their thought exists.1 Despite their importance
to the history of economics and social theory, social scientists and historians
pay little heed to the structural similarities as well as the important
divergences in their work. Consequently, after placing Durkheim and Veblen
in their social and historical context, I will (1) relate their epistemologies to
their use of cultural lag to explain the persistence of atavistic continuities in
the existing order, (2) compare their theories of social bonding and
integration to explain the meaning as well as the structural differences in their
collectivism, and (3) link these with the predictive power of their broader
socioeconomic theories to forecast the future of Western society. The two
men made major contributions to the human sciences and a historical
retrospect by way of comparative analysis will illuminate these.
It is important to note that Veblen and Durkheim are charged by critics
with a similar set of sociological sins. The list of alleged frailties runs as
follows: both men are too concerned with consensus, focus in an often exclu-
sionary way on social bonding and emulation, and have no adequate theory
of conflict or power; also, they have no theory of agency or volition, no con-
ception of the individual and individual consciousness and are the architects
of positivism in the social sciences. As such, they contributed significantly to
the crises of irrationalism in the human sciences. But, as Susan Stedman Jones
has argued, in certain respects these charges falsify Durkheims position; in
other respects, they eradicate the originality or the complexity of his
position.2 The same holds true of Veblen.3 However, space constraints limit
our analysis of the social theory of the two men to the more limited objec-
tives already mentioned.
Veblen was probably more familiar with Europe and European ideas than
Durkheim4 was with America and American ideas. Nevertheless, few would
deny Durkheims immense influence on both theoretical and applied soci-
ology, areas where Veblens influence has been markedly less. However,
Veblens institutional economics was possessed of theoretical insight with
considerable explanatory and predictive potency, even if, ultimately,
Durkheims and Veblens most salient contributions were the establishment
of a positivist sociology by the former and the creation of a sociological econ-
omics by the latter.
No comparative analysis of Durkheim and Veblen would be complete
without reference to the historical differences between France and the
th th
United States in the late 19 and early 20 centuries. Indeed, a focus on
the political instability of the former and the political stability, economic
growth and social transformation of the latter is essential. Durkheim could
hardly ignore the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 18701 or
the uprising of the Paris Commune which followed it; the protracted con-
stitutional conflict between monarchists and republicans over how France
was to be ruled and who was to rule it, and the strife between clericals and
anti-clericals over the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the French
social order and educational system. Although Veblen could not look back
to halcyon days in America after the Civil War of his early boyhood, his
country had undergone sustained industrial growth, even if this was inter-
rupted by a severe depression that began in 1893 and lasted until about the
outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898; not to mention financial
panics in 1903 and 1907. Nor was he prone to ignore the strife between
capital and labor and the ensuing violence and disorder that often accom-
panied strikes. But it is important to note that while political crises occurred
as in the aftermath of the presidential election of 1876, they did not threaten
political stability the way they did in France during the same period. Also,
although racial, ethnic and religious conflict certainly occurred in Veblens
America, this did not destabilize the polity to the degree that conflict
between clericals and anticlericals did in France. To be sure, the United
States underwent a period of farmer-labor insurgency and it successfully
engaged in both labor and racial repression. But much of the labor force
enjoyed a significant increase in its standard of living and ethnic and
religious conflict was mitigated by some degree of cultural and social inte-
gration. Indeed, in the realm of religious conflict alone, Durkheim
witnessed the persecution of his co-religionist Dreyfus which had no direct
parallel in the United States to interest Veblen.
How different then was late 19th- and early 20th-century France, the
country Durkheim knew and loved, from the country in which Veblen lived
and often satirized? Since their social theories were developed in these
contexts, this is not merely a rhetorical question. But it is evident that the
insecurity and instability of French political life were significantly more
intense than what was occurring in America where, as Werner Sombart once
suggested, radicalism made little headway in part because it foundered on
reefs of roast beef and apple pie. How the complex factors of French and
American social and cultural existence impacted on the development of
Durkheims structural-functional social theory and Veblens institutional
economics will be further developed as we proceed.
There is a rough chronological correspondence between the insti-
tutionalization and professionalization of sociology in France and the
United States. In 1896, Durkheim, along with a small number of colleagues,
established a new journal, the Anne Sociologique, that provided an annual
survey of the sociological literature and the other social sciences and
humanities closely related to sociology upon whose methods and findings
a more fully developed sociology would be constructed. The establishment
in 1893 of Ren Wormss Institut de Sociologie with its journal La Revue
Internationale de Sociologie and the founding by Durkheim of LAnne
Sociologique were the key to promoting Pariss place in the social sciences.
Wormss eclectic annual conferences served as forums for an international
cross-fertilization of ideas; while Durkheim aimed to achieve recognition
of social sciences as branches of learning through the creation of university
chairs so that work in these fields would reflect his own school of thought.5
A recent book, La sociologie conomique 18901920 by Jean Jacques
Gislain and Phillipe Steiner situates Veblen firmly within this intellectual
milieu.6 During his 13-year stay at Chicago from 1892 to 1905, Veblen was
a frequent contributor to the newly founded American Journal of Sociology
of which Durkheim was an advisory editor from 1895 until the First World
War. Lester Frank Ward nominated Veblen in 1905 to become one of the
100 members of the Institut de Sociologie, which led in turn to his
becoming a vice-president in 1916. Veblen thus joined a group that included
many of the most eminent economists and sociologists of his era. Among
those presidents of the organization and other members whose names will
be familiar were Alfred Marshall, Eugen von Bhm-Bawerk, Gustav
Schmoller, Carl Menger, William Graham Sumner, Georg Simmel, and such
associate members as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and Max Weber. Many of
these and other names on the membership rosters are recognizable as
authors who published or were reviewed in the Journal of Political
Economy at the University of Chicago during Veblens tenure as managing
editor probably because of their prominence at the time, but, perhaps, in
some cases, because of their Institut connection.7
However, it is in naming Veblen as one of six founders of economic
sociology that Gislain and Steiner situate him within an emerging branch
of learning. The other five, all continental Europeans, were Durkheim,
Pareto, Schumpeter, Franois Simiand (a French economist) and Weber.
Apparently, this was the closest generic disciplinary link that existed
between Durkheim and Veblen, since neither appears to have been particu-
larly interested in or knowledgeable about the others work.8
E P I S T E M O L O G Y: S C I E N C E A N D R E L I G I O N
Veblens own break with religious belief came early, probably in ado-
lescence, but like Durkheim he made his departure in decisive fashion. The
latter came to see religious beliefs not merely as false, but rather as a bewil-
dered and exaggerated type form of morality; that is, moral beliefs
expressed in theology or mythology rather than in scientific language.9 But
for Veblen religion, while deeply rooted in the human order, was essentially
a form of false consciousness which might ultimately give way before the
impact of science and technology, although because of the possibility of the
resurgence of atavistic tendencies he made no predictions.
Both men rejected animism and animistic theories regarding the natural
and social order. Both hoped, and Durkheim prophesied more consistently
than Veblen, that religion would become ever more subject to the criticism
and the control of science. In any case, they viewed society as the causal
determinant as well as the cognitive and symbolic referent of religion, not
as divine inspiration or revelation. Both thus possessed a sociocentric view
of human behavior from which, especially in the case of Veblen, religion-
ists could take little comfort.
Durkheim sometimes failed to distinguish between the truth of a belief
and the acceptance of a belief as true, an error Veblen rarely made; to be
sure, the two shared the view that beliefs have a social origin, that their
efficacy comes from society, and that they have social functions that reinforce
the social conscience. Where they differ is over the question of whether these
beliefs reflect the realities of social life. Had he been cognizant of his views,
Veblen would probably have criticized Durkheim for confusing the causes of
religion, the value of the services it renders, and the truth of what it affirms.
Although both men ultimately accepted the pre-eminence of science,
they were skeptical of human ability to distinguish between objectivity in
the sense of social authority and objectivity as correspondence with the
actual social and natural order. Veblen, however, believed that the impact of
science and technology in industrial society was starting to increase this
correspondence rapidly, but the likelihood of the resurgence of religious
superstition, invidious consumption, and patriotism and nationalism
always existed with their potential negative impact.
Both Veblen and Durkheim came to terms with the issue as to how religion
and science make different epistemological claims and, given this, whose
claims are to be accepted. In the final analysis, the two men accept the view
that the claims of science are epistemologically superior and that religion will
suffer a decline in terms of its accepted explanatory power. First, because the
physical world is commonly regarded as best explained by the secular scientist
and, secondly, because the conventional view of the religious nature of man
will gradually be abandoned, although the possibility of the resurgence of
atavistic continuities cannot be ignored. Also, religion will be less needed as a
structural source of solidarity for society. Nevertheless, Durkheim asserts:
The world of religious and moral life still remains forbidden. The great
majority of men continue to believe that here there is an order of things
which the intellect can enter only by very special routes.10
But the authority of science is becoming ever more firmly established and it
cannot be disregarded:
From then on, faith no longer holds the same sway as in the past over
the system of representations that can continue to be called religious.
Where Veblen and Durkheim differ is over the question of whether religious
belief is purely illusory; that is, a form of false consciousness or not. To the
former, although religions social function and its role as a social bonding
agent are important, in the final analysis the issue is whether or not the
beliefs and practices of the religionist produce desirable social consequences
and whether they are epistemologically valid. In Veblens eyes, they mostly
fail to achieve these ends at least in the urban-industrial setting in which
much of humanity now resides. Durkheim, too, visualizes a secular basis for
moral socialization and the preservation of social order, although he decries
the crisis in moral authority and social stability which the decline in religion
has brought about. Thus the evolutionary naturalist Norwegian-American
and the skeptical French Jew partly disagree on the social efficacy and value
of formal, institutional religious belief and practice.
Although Veblen was sensitive to those non-rational or pre-rational
elements of life and culture ordinarily associated with religion, he did not
accord them the respect they received from Durkheim. To the latter,
religion seemed basically indestructible and an integral part of human
nature and the human drama, however negatively its social consequences
C U LT U R A L L A G
than one way to adapt. Large hunter-gatherer tribes could have simply split
up and dispersed and still survived. But specialization allowed them to
survive without having to do this. Veblen was more certain than Durkheim
that he had located the obstacles to progress; in these he included emula-
tory consumption, abstinence from useful labor, absentee ownership,
nationalism and patriotism and institutional religious belief and practice.
Nils Gilman comments that:
Veblens institutions functioned in the same way as Emile Durkheims
cosmologies. . . . Each of these categories functions conservatively in
that, as social practices, they serve to slow social change. This con-
servative dimension made Durkheim take a positive view of cosmolo-
gies. . . . But for Veblen, institutional conservatism was the most basic
of social ills. If technological transformation was a positive good, the
tenacious persistence of old ways of doing things always retarded the
full flowering of new technological potentials. Society and culture, in
other words, served as a brake on the full development of human life
through technology. . . . Veblen maintained the more ironic, typically
modernist belief that persistent institutional backwardness would
inevitably dog technological change. Useless personal habits would
remain because they helped service the vested interests of institutions.14
As an economic historian and sociologist of growth, Veblen is best known
for his institutionalism, a term coined by Walton Hamilton.15 In one sense,
the term is misleading because it was existing institutions which Veblen crit-
icized because of their inhibitive impact on technological change. In his
theory of cultural lag, he developed the idea that institutions are inhibitory
and backward-looking, whereas science and technology are dynamic and
orientated towards change. The question at any point in time is whether insti-
tutions are sufficiently malleable to permit efficient exploitation of existing
scientific and technological potential.16 As the tool continuum evolves, it may
become more absorptive of cultural cross-fertilization processes which bring
together more and different tools, making possible new technologies. Veblen
thus explains the economic history of the West by linking cultural anthro-
pology and social history with changes in the technoeconomic base; the main
variables in his explanation are the degree of institutional rigidity and cultural
malleability, and the dynamism and pressure exerted by technology.
In sociological jargon cultural lag is a term of both use and abuse often
employed with imprecision or as a term of deprecation or denigration
denoting ineptitude on the part of the user. But as employed here in comparing
Durkheim and Veblen, it means the period between that point in time in which
one valued cultural element nears fulfillment and that point at which another
element reaches the same level of development. Thus in Veblens analysis in
which cultural lag is viewed both normatively and materially, it designates
technological objects and institutional cultural impediments to their growth,
First of all, we wish to state that our researches have nowhere led us to
observe that preponderant influence in the genesis of collective facts
which M. Tarde attributed to imitation. Moreover, from the preceding
definition, which is not a theory but simply a rsum of the immediate
data of observation, it seems indeed to follow, not only that imitation
does not always express the essential and characteristic features of the
social fact, but even that it never expresses them. No doubt, every social
fact is imitated; it has, as we have just shown, a tendency to become
general, but that is because it is social, i.e., obligatory. Its power of
expansion is not the cause but the consequence of its sociological
character.20
Veblen and Durkheim both asked how industrial societies were held
together. Is it by emulation or common ideas and sentiments and by shared
norms and values? Veblens theory of status emulation combined with his
views on nationalism and patriotism provided an explanation of the
bonding agent, that is, social cement needed for at least a modicum of
coherence, however damaging these processes might be to the underlying
population. Durkheim was more reluctant to admit the extent to which the
French class structure was differentiated and conflictual as well as the
degree to which this could be understood and resolved only politically. But
critics have overemphasized the extent to which he seemed to believe that
value consensus created by a reformed system of pedagogy buttressed by
common socially inherited moral and cultural attitudes would suffice.
Nevertheless, what separated the two men was that, in the final analysis,
Durkheim perceived no irreparable class divisions or conflict since he
focused on what solidifies a people, while Veblen saw divisive fissures
merely papered over by emulatory processes solidifying processes which
might dissipate when downturns in the business cycle converged with
political alienation and cultural dislocation.
Veblen and Durkheim, especially the latter, were never sufficiently socialist
for the socialists and clearly not Marxist enough for the Marxists of their time.
Indeed, even now, three generations after their deaths in 1929 and 1917,
respectively, it is difficult to pin political or ideological labels on them that are
accurately descriptive and of contemporary relevance, nor were they, in any
case, preoccupied with short-term questions of political means. Although not
devoid of interest in the continuum of endsmeans, as their contemporary
and Veblens acquaintance John Dewey called it, they tended to focus outside
the boundaries of direct political involvement and action. By so doing they
avoided both partisanship and submission to serious party discipline. But
insulation from political influence and control did not signify an intention to
be politically and morally neutral. To illustrate, Veblen acquiesced with critical
reservations in the Bolshevik seizure of power and its early aftermath,21 while
Durkheim was hostile toward demagoguery and revolutionary struggle.
Durkheims socialism was strongly reformist and revisionist. He was
opposed to agitation which disturbs without improving, and above all
to social changes which destroy without replacing. He applauded the
efforts of those socialists, especially in Germany, Belgium and Italy,
who were seeking to renew and extend the formulae of which they
have for too long been the prisoners. In particular he cited the doctrine
of economic materialism, the Marxist theory of value, the iron law [of
wages], [and] the pre-eminent importance attributed to class conflict.
These disputable and out-of-date hypotheses, though they still served
as propaganda for the party, in fact compromised the idea of socialism.22
This quotation from Lukes indicates that Durkheim sided with revisionist
Eduard Bernstein against Karl Kautsky while Veblen, who was very familiar
with the debate between the revisionist and orthodox Marxists, was mostly
non-committal on where he stood.23
Veblen and Durkheim differed over the efficacy of the intermediate, guild-
like organizations that occupy a prominent role in market economies with
constitutional government; the latter emphasizing their positive function
both in protecting individuals from the centralizing tendencies of the state
and providing the autonomy and opportunity for self-realization; the former
arguing that many of them simply reinforce the ceremonial nature and
invidious power of the hegemonic classes. Between the family and the state
were a multitude of semi-autonomous, voluntary organizations including
occupational groupings, craft unions, professional organizations, churches,
charitable and philanthropic foundations and so forth. Durkheim, of course,
emphasized their positive role in society, while Veblen believed that they
merely reinforced the power system and values most in need of change; the
settlement houses in Chicago and the craft unions in the American Feder-
ation of Labor were simply two examples of this.24
CONCLUSION
How are Durkheims and Veblens epistemologies, views of cultural lag, and
theories of social order and integration connected, if at all, with their fore-
casts of the political future of modern society and industrial capitalism?
The view that religious thought and ritual express and dramatize social
NOTES
1 Most recently, however, see Gislain and Steiner (1999). Also, see the following for
a very brief commentary on the relationship between the social theory and intel-
lectual biography of the two men: Riesman (1952), Suto (1979) and Haskell (1984:
2019). However, Mestrovic situates their ideas in fin de sicle Western intellectual
history. Mestrovic is interested in the similarities in their social theories and
criticism and makes no real effort to explain their differences; he stresses the
commonality in their outlook for his own purposes which focus on larger trends
in late 19th-century thought and the usefulness of these trends in understanding
the barbarian temperament in contemporary American life and culture. To illus-
trate: Thus, Durkheims concept of anomie is generally understood by contem-
porary sociologists as the overly rational normlessness, when, in fact, Durkheim
referred to it as a state of infinite desires which afflicts the core of society, not its
deviant subcultures. He used this concept in its full range of fin de sicle meanings
to denote a strange and paradoxical condition of progress as well as Nietzschean
degeneration which results in pessimism, disenchantment and sorrow in society.
His usage is commensurate with similar concerns by his fin de sicle colleagues,
including Veblens use of the term conspicuous consumption. See Mestrovic
(1992, 1993: 124). Also, see Tilman (2002).
2 See Jones (2001) especially Ch. 1, for analysis of these alleged shortcomings.
3 The most detailed biography of Veblen is Dorfman (1934). This study is flawed in
several respects; correctives to it include Tilman (1992, 1996) and Jorgensen and
Jorgensen (1999). Also, see Bartley and Yoneda (1999), Edgell (1996, 2001) and Eby
(2002).
4 Intellectual biographies of Durkheim abound, but see Nisbet (1974), Lukes (1972),
Giddens (1979), Thompson (1982) and Jones (1986). Most recently, see these
specialized studies of particular aspects of Durkheims life and thought: Schmaus
(1994), Nelson (1999), Strenski (1997) and Jones (1999).
5 See Clark (1973: 14872).
6 See Gislain and Steiner (1995). For a useful analysis of this study, see Wasser (1996).
7 Veblen contributed to the journal from its founding and was formally its managing
editor from 1896 to 1904.
27 See Veblen (1965a). For a detailed analysis of Durkheims views see Hawkins
(1994). Cf. Veblen (1919b: 374).
28 Cf. Veblen (1930: 387456) and Durkheim (1994: 12338).
29 Lukes (1972: 483). Cf. Veblen (1965b) and Durkheim (1977).
30 Cf. Veblen (1965b) and Durkheim (1956).
31 Veblen (1975a: 269).
32 See Christian Morals and the Competitive System in Veblen (1964a: 20018).
33 Recent scholarship emphasizes Durkheims democratic socialism. See Jones
(2001: Ch. 6).
34 See Veblen (1964b) and The Opportunity of Japan in Veblen (1964a: 24866).
35 For a more detailed treatment of this thesis, see Loader and Tilman (1995).
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
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