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HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES Vol. 15 No. 4

2002 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) pp. 5170
[0952-6951(200211)15:4;5170; 029681]

Emile Durkheim and Thorstein

Veblen on epistemology,
cultural lag and social order
RICK TILMAN

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.

Key words cultural lag, Emile Durkheim, institutional economics,

social order, structural-functional sociology, Thorstein Veblen

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52 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

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

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 53

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

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54 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

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.

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 55

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.

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56 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

There rises a power before religion that, even though religions

offspring [science], from then on applies its own critique and its own
testing to religion. And everything points to the prospect that this
testing will become ever more extensive and effective, without any
possibility of assigning a limit to its future influence.11
What Veblen regarded as the persistence of cultural lag was interpreted by
Durkheim to mean that the erosion and disappearance of one set of sacred
observances would invariably be followed by the appearance of new entities
or states to which sacred status is granted. There is, Durkheim emphasizes:
. . . something eternal in religion: the cult and the faith. But men can
neither conduct ceremonies for which they can see no rationale, nor
accept a faith that they in no way understand. To spread or simply
maintain religion, one must justify it, which is to say one must devise a
theory of it. A theory of this sort must assuredly rest on the various
sciences, as soon as they come into existence: social sciences first, since
religious faith has its origins in society; psychology next, since society is
a synthesis of human consciousness; sciences of nature finally, since man
and society are linked to the universe and can be abstracted from it only
artificially. But as important as these borrowings from the established
sciences may be, they are in no way sufficient; faith is above all a spur
to action, whereas science, no matter how advanced, always remains at
a distance from action. Science is fragmentary and incomplete; it
advances but slowly and is never finished; but life that cannot wait.12

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

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 57

might be valued; but, to Veblen, it was neither indestructible nor a neces-

sary aspect of human existence. Indeed, in The Theory of Business
Enterprise (1904), Veblen claimed that interaction with machine technology
on the part of industrial workers and the inculcation of the ethos of science
in other social strata such as engineers, technicians and scientists was
creating an amoral, iconoclastic body of finikin skeptics.13 Veblen was less
confident than Durkheim that the future of religion was assured; indeed,
his view was perhaps closer to Freuds in that, if religion had any future
among the underlying population, it was the future of an illusion.
Although Durkheim was clearly not a religious man, he placed great stress
on the relationship between the social bond and the belief in the sacred. The
indissolubility of the sacred and society in his thought can be contrasted
with Veblen who, of course, held no such views although he was impressed
by the ways in which the sacralization of culture inhibited its further
rationalization. Nevertheless, Veblen used the terms animism and teleo-
logical interchangeably; whereas in common usage as well as in scholarly
discourse they do not have the same meaning. Animism is the idea that
natural objects have souls, or that inanimate objects are inhabited or infested
with spirits, while teleological signifies evidence of design or purpose in
nature and is a doctrine of final causes or purpose. Veblen knew the differ-
ence between the two, but assigned them the same general meaning hoping
to convince his readers that there is no real difference between the supersti-
tion of primitives who practise animism, Catholics who believe in natural
law with its teleological underpinnings, and neoclassical economists with
their focus on equilibria as a norm. Durkheim, too, attempted to make Aus-
tralian totemists sound like contemporary Catholics.

C U LT U R A L L A G

The role of Darwinism in the development of the thought of Veblen and

Durkheim is notable. For Veblen, in particular, the key to evolutionary
social change lay in adequate adaptation to the environment. Much futility
and waste resulted from maladaptation while fullness of life was the result
of successful adaptation with the human race consisting increasingly of
those who achieved effective adjustment to the environment. Indeed, both
men believed that failure adequately to adapt would be followed by failure
to survive and if religion, kinship, or class were impediments, they must be
altered. But in Durkheims view the bonds of religion and kinship were so
strong that, as the population pressure of early societies increased, instead
of dispersing, people specialized. Labor specialization was an adaptation
that allowed more people to be supported in the same area than undiffer-
entiated hunting and gathering. Durkheim understood that there was more

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58 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

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,

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 59

i.e. predatory actions and institutions that lag behind workmanlike or

technological ones. But, in the writings of Durkheim, focus is on stable equi-
librium not constant change. His use of a functionalist model of social change
or social disorganization tends to assume equilibrium as a normal state of
affairs so that it is disequilibrium that needs explanation;17 whereas with
Veblen the term equilibrium has little meaning or relevance since science, tech-
nology and the cultural and institutional superstructure of society are assumed
to be at odds with one another most of the time.
That Veblen believed the overthrow of the existing system of sacred values
and religious belief was possible, even likely, in those social formations most
under the influence of science and technology was evident. In fact, he
acknowledged the persistence of the conventional dichotomy between the
sacred and the secular; but he argued that this atavistic continuity was most
likely to endure in those social strata furthest removed from scientific
culture and the machine process.18

SOCIAL BONDING AND HARMONY VS. CONFLICT

In Durkheims explanation of human community, social bonding is based on

ideational consensus, what he called collective representations that are both
moral and conceptual and which funnel human activity into harmonious
relationships. In Veblens thought, ideas and sentiments coagulate in certain
broad-based patterns and these produce and reflect power, class and status
relationships and, obviously, social conflict. Durkheims views regarding the
emergence and use of private property rest on the existence of commonly
shared religious attitudes toward the legitimacy of particular systems of
property-relations. He paid less attention to power and coercion in the body
politic and to its roots in the class structure and property ownership,
although he did not ignore these factors, because he was more preoccupied
than Veblen with order and equilibrium and with the social factors that make
for agreement and consensus.
The different role assigned by the two men to emulation and emulative
processes is pronounced. The emulatory consumption patterns so promi-
nent in Veblens analysis have a brute facticity about them to be sure, but
they exist because of the way consumption and status are perceived by
participants. Both men realistically understood that mass production and
consumption alone cannot satisfy human needs, since they are based on a
nave notion of human nature and its relation to social organization.
Durkheims taxonomy of sociological terms includes a social fact which is
. . . recognized by the power of external coercion which it exercises or
is capable of exercising over individuals, and the presence of this power
may be recognized in its turn either by the existence of some specific

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60 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

sanction or by the resistance offered against every individual effort that

tends to violate it. One can, however, define it also by its diffusion
within the group, provided that, in conformity with our previous
remarks, one takes care to add as a second and essential characteristic
that its own existence is independent of the individual forms it assumes
in its diffusion.19

This definition of a social fact leads to a different view of social imitative

processes than that held by Veblen whose theory of status emulation is
undoubtedly the best-known of his contributions to economic and social
theory. Indeed, Durkheim, contrary to Veblen, reduces imitative behavior to
the status of a socially derivative process in this discussion of Gabriel Tardes
work on imitation and social mimesis:

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.

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 61

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

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62 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

Durkheim stressed that it is not part of socialism to mandate the subordi-

nation of economic activities to the state; instead, economic functions were
to replace political ones. But he endorsed this set of relations primarily for
occupational and voluntary associations and had unions and professional
associations primarily in mind.25 Whereas Veblen, with proclivities toward
both guild socialism and anarcho-syndicalism, held a similar position
toward intermediary organizations of the sort Durkheim favored; but
believed they posed the problem of cooptation by the vested interests.
Expressions of ideological affinity for both industrial and agrarian syndi-
calism are also found in several of Veblens works. His commitment to
workers participation in the decision-making process is probably respons-
ible for his early expressions of sympathy for Bolshevism, although his
approval of Bolshevik abolition of the price system and certain forms of
private property must also be considered. In any case, he wrote that Bol-
shevism is revolutionary. It aims to carry democracy and majority rule over
into the domain of industry,26 and as such it could become a new form of
social bonding and integration which might supersede emulatory consump-
tion and patriotism.
It is worth noting that both Durkheim and Veblen focused at times on
technocratic forms of socialism. Veblens The Engineers and the Price
System (1921)27 may exemplify the technocratic strand in socialist thought;
while Durkheims focus on the role of social intermediaries such as pro-
fessional associations in regulating the economy reflects the same bias in
more moderate form. It is also important to recognize that neither
Durkheim nor Veblen was, in any recognizable sense, a Marxist. Indeed,
however much they may have sympathized with egalitarian ideals, they
believed that Marx and his more zealous disciples were misguided in their
analysis of class, exaggerated the potentiality for radical change, and were
fixated on the likelihood of social consummation and social status ending
in a classless society.28
But Veblen was more explicit and focused than Durkheim on the problems
of class dominance and ideological hegemony. Although Durkheim was a
reformer, he was less inclined than Veblen to emphasize dominant or hegem-
onic classes or groups in society, or to ask whose interests were served by
existing structures and policies. Also, Durkheim did not often critically
consider the role of class ideology in maintaining consensus and he failed to
observe the moral attitudes of society as systematically prejudiced in favor of
some to the disadvantage of others. Unlike Veblen, Durkheim viewed edu-
cation mostly as adaptation. As Lukes put it:

He was blind to its role in pre-determining and restricting life-chances.

He saw it as adapting to an independently generated occupational
diversity, not as helping to constitute and perpetuate social divisions.

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 63

Moreover, he never examined the relationship between the demands of

the occupational structure for skills (to be inculcated by education) and
the perpetuation of social hierarchies that is, the relation between the
technical and the social division of labor; nor did he consider the extent
to which such skills are culturally defined in such a way as to create or
maintain such hierarchies.29
As for the promotion of social reform through education, both Durkheim
and Veblen see the educational system as a mirror for the society around it;
social ills are inevitably to be found in the educational structure including
both the private and public school system. Consequently, there are limits to
the extent to which education is a means to social reform since the educational
system is itself in need of reform.30 Still, Durkheim was more optimistic than
Veblen that education was one of the keys to social and political reform, but
it required the correct type of education which articulated the ideals and ideas
of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution and the moral values and
philosophy of science and secular humanism.
In addition to their differences over the role of education, Veblen placed
greater stress than Durkheim on the power disparities in society caused by
class structure and ideological control. Witness this statement from The
Theory of Business Enterprise:
Hence modern politics is business politics. . . . This is true both of
foreign and domestic policy. Legislation, police surveillance, the
administration of justice, the military and diplomatic service, all are
chiefly concerned with business relations, pecuniary interests, and
they have little more than an incidental bearing on other human inter-
ests. All this apparatus is also charged with the protection of life and
personal liberty but its work in this bearing has much of a pecuniary
color.31
Veblen was more radical than Durkheim because he was more attuned to class
power and an ideological control and assumed that a protracted struggle of
both a political and an ideological nature would be necessary to bring about
social reconstruction. The social bonding and integration system and pro-
cesses articulated by the two men are thus different and extend into the realm
of politics and doctrinal conflict.

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

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64 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

relationships is central to Durkheims thought. But Veblen believed that

religion often distorted these relationships because it is a form of false con-
sciousness. In his view, rather than simply acting as a catalyst in the ideo-
logical integration of society, religion could also be a source of legitimized
predation and exploitation when it became a class phenomenon. Yet social-
ism might offset the predatory impact of religious belief fused with class
privilege, for the social altruism sanctioned by Christian morality weakened
the reactionary thrust of the fusion. Indeed, as late as 1910 when Veblen was
53 years old he predicted that altruism might ultimately overcome
predation.32 In short, both men thought existing moral forces might aid in
developing a more egalitarian, collectivist organization of society, but
Durkheim stopped short of Veblen in his prescriptions for social change and
in his emphasis on economic forces in bringing it about.33
The politics and ideology of both men can thus be identified in their (1)
analysis and evaluation of the social role of religion and its cultural persis-
tence, (2) identification of the loci of institutional and cultural resistance to
change, and (3) persistence of atavistic continuities which impede the instru-
mental adaptation of the community to change. If Veblen and Durkheim did
not submerge themselves in the 19th centurys faith in progress, secularism,
individualism, technology and large-scale organization, they nevertheless
imbibed enough of the flavor of these to believe in the possibility of positive
social change. But they also were realistic enough to anticipate the possible
resurgence of atavistic continuities. Indeed, in the case of Veblen, sufficient
prescience was involved to predict fascism in Japan and Germany long before
it reared its ugly head.34
Durkheim believed that Western society in his day was undergoing a major
crisis which consisted of a pathological loosening of moral authority over the
lives of the underlying population. Veblen also believed that deep-seated
change was underway, but he felt that much of what passed for moral
authority was itself pathological. At the very least, it was inhibitive or destruc-
tive of the generic ends of human existence; ends which led to fullness of
life which he believed encompassed altruism, critical intelligence and profi-
ciency of workmanship among others. Veblens equivalent of Durkheims
explanation of the social crisis afflicting Western civilization pointed to the
bonding role of status emulation and rationalization of processes which offset
the centripetal effects of social disintegration. Indeed, the centrifuge of emu-
latory consumption patterns and patriotism were what kept society from
coming apart in the face of change induced by science and technology.
Durkheim was less sympathetic with revolutionary Marxism than Veblen
was with Bolshevism because he believed that revolutions change little; that
is, deep-rooted, lasting change is usually the result of long-term social
evolution. However, he was favorably inclined toward reformism and
rejected the claim that the state is simply a medium of class domination. For
him the state, contrary to Veblen, could function as the vehicle for the

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 65

realization of social reform. Since Veblen viewed the state as an instrument

of the vested interests, he did not regard it in its present form as a likely
medium for the promotion of social reform. In short, he had no theory of the
positive state. But Durkheim, on the contrary, believed the state could engage
in the social control of industry in order to achieve desired objectives. To
some degree it would have to regulate industry and to a lesser degree the pro-
fessions, but at no point did Veblen explicitly endorse such policies. He had
little faith in the ability of government to do this equitably and efficiently
since it was mostly a tool of the vested interests and, in any case, he was not
given to ruminating about how to make incremental changes in public policy
through the auspices of the state. Veblen and Durkheim thus differed over
the extent to which it was possible to identify and ameliorate social ills using
the instrumentalities of government.
Veblens critique of the dynastic state anticipated the appearance of fascism.
In Imperial Germany, he described the Hohenzollern dynasty as a volatile
fusion of modern science and technology with an antiquated class and
religious structure, conservative bureaucracy, entrenched military caste and
quasi-absolutist monarchy. In the long run, Veblen believed these structures
could not coexist with the new industrial system because their imperatives
were not congruent with its maintenance. The opportunity of the dynasty to
seize territories it coveted, and engage in other acts of unprovoked aggres-
sion, was rapidly passing away because it could neither live with industrial-
ism nor live without it. If it lacked the forces of modernity, it lacked the
military capability to prey on its neighbors, yet with those forces its own
institutions would erode under pressures exerted by science, technology,
organized labor and the demands of the underlying population for represen-
tative government and peaceable relations with other countries.
As for fascism, Veblen did not, to be sure, predict the exact form it would
take when it came, nor did he fully anticipate the personal characteristics of
Hitler and Tojo and the brutal results of their policies. Nevertheless, his
prophecies were uncanny for, in rough fashion, he predicted the institutional
configurations and nationalist aggression of Germany and Japan long before
they occurred. More to the point, however, he used his own patented brand
of institutional analysis to make these predictions. Thus his success in pre-
dicting the future on these occasions was not due to random chance. Rather,
it was a direct consequence of using an institutional approach with its stress
on uneven development, cultural lag and the ultimate incongruity between
rigidity of habit and adaptive impulse.35 The predictable consequences of
these phenomena in absolutist systems would be aggression and war unless
the archaic German and Japanese political and social structures were
modernized; that is, brought in line with their new industrial systems and the
scientific and technological adaptive imperatives this suggested.
The life-span and mature thought of both men encompass the same
historical period and, although one was French and the other American, they

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66 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

sometimes responded in parallel ways to convergent changes in their own

societies; namely, the development of urbanization and industrialization
within a framework of constitutional government. But it is fair to say that
Durkheim did not anticipate the great wars and totalitarian governments of
the 20th century to the extent Veblen did. On the other hand, he was more
astute in anticipating the creation of a welfare and regulatory state in
industrial societies with market economies than his American contemporary.
It is evident that both Durkheims failures and his successes as a diagnosti-
cian and prognosticator are deeply rooted in his functionalist social theory as
are Veblens in his institutional economics.

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.

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EMILE DURKHEIM AND THORSTEIN VEBLEN 67

8 Wasser (1996: 4) says: Durkheim reviewed Veblens The Beginnings of

Ownership and another of his articles unfavorably in the same issue that saw
[Franois] Simiands review of Veblen as path breaking in his sociological insights.
Durkheim wrote that his was an article of some ingenuity, but singularly arbitrary.
Ownership of things are thought to be derived from ownership of persons. The
first objects of possession are thought to have been the spoils of war, particularly
women. The rights to these subjects were thought to have been extended to the
products of their labor. No facts are cited to support this thesis that is very much
in need of such support. This dismissive treatment of Veblen is unfortunate on
several counts. To some extent it reveals the blind side of Durkheim or his rigidity
frequently remarked on by his contemporaries. It was one aspect of his determi-
nation to set academic standards for sociology, standards which demanded solid
research. Durkheim, however, had failed to place Veblens point within a socio-
logical context; he did not make the sort of rounded analysis of Veblens objective
that Simiand had noted in Veblens preconceptions. Had he been able to relate
Veblen to his treatment of his subject, Durkheim might have understood the article
as an anthropological challenge to the political economists definition of ownership
which Veblen was questioning. Though in the years to come, Simiand, who edited
the economic sociology section in LAnne Sociologique, promised extensive
reviews of The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise,
they never appeared. One is led to conclude that Durkheim never revised his super-
ficial opinion of Veblen and may have blocked the promised reviews. The most
accessible translation of Durkheims review of Veblens article is Durkheim (1980:
389). Durkheims review was originally published in 1900.
9 For a broad sampling of Durkheims views on religion, see Durkheim (1975: Chs
112) and Durkheim (1995).
10 Durkheim (1995: 431).
11 ibid., p. 433.
12 ibid., p. 432.
13 See Veblen (1975a: Ch. 9) and The Place of Science in Modern Civilization in
Veblen (1930: 131).
14 Gilman (1999: 699).
15 See Hamilton (1919: 312).
16 See Veblen (1975b: 191, 195).
17 However, for a revisionist interpretation of Durkheim, see Rawls (1996).
18 See Veblen (1975b: Chs 8 and 9).
19 Durkheim (1966: 10).
20 ibid., pp. 1011.
21 See Veblen (1964a: 399449).
22 Lukes (1972: 323). Also, see Durkheim (1958: Ch. 1).
23 See Veblen (1973: Part II, Reviews). The relationship between Durkheims and
Veblens analysis of revisionist Marxism is evident in their reviews of Antonio
Labriolas Essais sur la conception matrialiste de lhistoire. See Durkheim (1897)
and Veblen (1897). Also, see Brown (1991).
24 See Veblen (1975b: 33446) and (1967: 4012).
25 See Durkheim (1957).
26 Veblen (1919a: 175).

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68 HISTORY OF THE HUMAN SCIENCES 15(4)

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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ation, Northfield, MN.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

RICK TILMAN is Emeritus Professor of Public Adminstration at the Uni-

versity of Nevada Las Vegas. He is the author of books on C. Wright Mills,
Thorstein Veblen, John Dewey, Jacques Loeb and the social philosophy of
the libertarian economists. He is retired.

Address: 809 West Murray Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001-1237, USA. Tel: (928)
556-9975.

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