thorsten veblen died in '29. i guess thomas piketty is the veblen of 2020.

deliberately feeling safer helps ease the tendency to look for and overreact to threats. find refuge in tangible and intangible things.
                                                                                   ¤                                                                       
Veblen died in 1929, just a few months before the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. The Depression was eventually harsh and protracted enough to inspire mass movements in favor of federal involvement in the economy and a new social safety net. In our own day, the government’s response to the pandemic has so far favored capital holders and other members of the “kept classes,” as Veblen liked to call them. It seems safe to conclude, as he did, that “[t]here is nothing in the situation that should reasonably flutter the sensibilities of the Guardians or of that massive body of well-to-do citizens who make up the rank and file of absentee owners, just yet.”

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Paul W. Gleason