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Veblen and the Political Economy of the Engineer
Author(s) -
Stabile Donald R.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
american journal of economics and sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.199
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1536-7150
pISSN - 0002-9246
DOI - 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1986.tb01899.x
Subject(s) - veblen good , technocracy , democracy , politics , neoclassical economics , social engineering (security) , sociology , economics , political science , law , computer science , computer security
A bstract .Thorstein Veblen's case for a Technocracy, “The Engineers and the Price System,” has long posed an enigma: Why would a thinker as radical as Veblen align himself with a group as conservative as engineers? But engineers themselves had developed a political economy with important points in common with Veblen's analysis. Starting from their positions as technological experts in corporations , engineers came to believe that business methods were not efficient for production; this belief led them to develop systems of scientific management as an antidote to old‐style management. Later, they expanded these ideas into a system of social management called Technocracy. This system of Technocracy represented an engineering effort at formulating an industrial democracy , with the cooperation of labor. Veblen was able to write a more systematic version of these ideas, because they fit in well with his own theoretical analysis.