THE COLLECTED WORKS OF THORSTEIN VEBLEN: Business Theories, Economic Articles & Essays. Thorstein Veblen
intrinsically right and good. They are therefore drawn on for guidance and conviction even in concerns that are not conceived to be primarily business concerns. So, e.g., they have permeated the educational system, thoroughly and intimately. Their presence, as an element of common sense, in the counsels of the "educators" shows itself in a naive insistence on the "practical" whenever the scheme of instruction is under advisement. "Practical" means useful for private gain. Any new departure in public instruction, whether in the public schools or in private endowed establishments, is scrutinized with this test in mind; which results in a progressive, though not wholly consistent, narrowing of instruction to such learning as is designed to give a ready application of results rather than a systematic organization of knowledge. The primary test is usefulness for getting an income. The secondary test, practically applied where latitude is allowed in the way of "culture" studies, is the aptness of the instruction in question to fit the learners for spending income in a decorous manner. Hence quasi-scholarly accomplishments. Much of the current controversy as to the inclusion or exclusion of one thing and another from the current curriculum of secondary and higher schools might be reduced to terms of one or the other of these two purposes without doing violence to the arguments put forth and with a great gain in conciseness and lucidity.
There is also a large resort to business methods in the conduct of the schools; with the result that a system of scholastic accountancy is enforced both as regards the work of the teachers and the progress of the pupils; whence follows a mechanical routine, with mechanical tests of competency in all directions. This lowers the value of the instruction for purposes of intellectual initiative and a reasoned grasp of the subject-matter. This class of erudition is rather a hindrance than a help to habits of thinking. It conduces to conviction rather than to inquiry, and is therefore a conservative factor.
In the endowed schools there is, moreover, an increasing introduction of business men and business methods into the personnel and the administrative work. This is necessarily so since these schools are competitors for students and endowments. The policy of these schools necessarily takes on some thing of the complexion of competitive business; which throws the emphasis on those features of school life that will best attract students and donors. The features which count most directly in these directions are not the same as would count most effectively toward the avowed ends of these schools. The standards which it is found Operative to live up to are not the highest standards of scholarly work. Courtesy as well as expediency inclines these schools to cultivate such appearances and such opinions as may be expected to find favor with men of wealth. These men of wealth are business men, for the most part elderly men, who are, as is well known, prevailingly of a conservative temper in all cultural matters, and more especially as touches those institutions that bear on business affairs.
A more far-reaching department of the educational system, though not technically rated as such, is the periodical press, both newspapers and magazines. This is a field of business enterprise, and business principles may be expected to work more consistently and to a more unqualified result in this field than in the school system, where these principles come in incidentally.
The current periodical press, whether ephemeral or other, is a vehicle for advertisements. This is its raison d'etre, as a business proposition, and this decides the lines of its management without material qualification. Exceptions to the rule are official and minor propagandist periodicals, and, in an uncertain measure, scientific journals. The profits of publication come from the sale of advertising space. The direct returns from sales and subscriptions are now a matter of wholly secondary consequence. Publishers of periodicals, of all grades of transiency, aim to make their product as salable as may he, in order to pass their advertising pages under the eyes of as many readers as may be. The larger the circulation the greater, other things equal, the market value of the advertising space. The highest product of this development is the class of American newspapers called "independent." These in particular - and they are followed at no great interval by the rest edit all items of news, comment, or gossip with a view to what the news ought to be and what opinions ought to be expressed on passing events.162
The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiments of his readers, and then tell them what they like to believe. By this means he maintains or increases the circulation. His second duty is to see that nothing is said in the news items or editorials which may discountenance any claims or announcements made by his advertisers, discredit their standing or good faith, or expose any weakness or deception in any business venture that is or may become a valuable advertiser. By this means he increases the advertising value of his circulation.163 The net result is that both the news columns and the editorial columns are commonly meretricious in a high degree.
Systematic insincerity on the part of the ostensible purveyors of information and leaders of opinion may be deplored by persons who stickle for truth and pin their hopes of social salvation on the spread of accurate information. But the ulterior cultural effect of the insincerity which is in this way required by the business situation may, of course, as well be salutary as the reverse. Indeed, the effect is quite as likely to be salutary, if "salutary" be taken to mean favorable to the maintenance of the established order, since the insincerity is guided by a wish to avoid any lesion of the received preconceptions and prejudices. The insincerity of the newspapers and magazines seems, on the whole, to be of a conservative trend.
The periodical press is not only a purveyor of news, opinions, and admonitions; it also supplies the greater part of the literature currently read. And in this part of its work the same underlying business principles are in force. The endeavor is to increase the circulation at any cost that will result in an increased net return from the sale of the advertising space. The literary output of the magazines is of use for carrying the advertising pages, and as a matter of business, as seen from the standpoint of the business man's interest, that is its only use.
The standards of excellence that govern this periodical literature seem fairly to be formulated as follows: (1) In each given case it must conform to the tastes and the most ready comprehension of the social strata which the particular periodical is designed to reach; (2) it should conduce to a quickened interest in the various lines of services and commodities offered in the advertising pages, and should direct the attention of readers along such lines of investment and expenditure as may benefit the large advertisers particularly. At least it must in no way hamper the purposes of the advertisers. Nothing should go in a popular magazine which would cast a sinister shadow over any form of business venture that advertises or might be induced to advertise.164
Taken in the aggregate, the literary output is desired to meet the tastes of that large body of people who are in the habit of buying freely. The successful magazine writers are those who follow the taste of the class to whom they speak, in any aberration (fad, mannerism, or misapprehension) and in any shortcoming of insight or force which may beset that class. They must also conform to the fancies and prejudices of this class as regards the ideals - artistic, moral, religious, or social - for which they speak. The class to which the successful periodicals turn, and which gives tone to periodical literature, is that great body of people who are in moderately easy circumstances. Culturally this means the respectable middle class (largely the dependent business class) of various shades of conservatism, affectation, and snobbery. 165
On the whole, the literature provided in this way and to this end seems to run on a line of slightly more pronounced conservatism and affectation than the average sentiment of the readers appealed to. This is true for the following reason. Readers who are less conservative and less patient of affectations, snobbery, and illiberality than the average are in the position of doubters and dissentients. They are less confident in their convictions of what is right and good in all matters, and are also not unwilling to make condescending allowances for those who are less "advanced," and who must be humored since they know no better; whereas those who rest undoubting in the more conservative views and a more intolerant affectation of gentility are readier, because more naive, in their rejection of whatever does not fully conform to their