[The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen]@TWC D-Link book
The Theory of the Leisure Class

CHAPTER One ~~ Introductory
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The precise line of demarcation is not the same as it was in the early barbarian scheme, but the broad distinction has not fallen into disuse.
The tacit, common-sense distinction to-day is, in effect, that any effort is to be accounted industrial only so far as its ultimate purpose is the utilisation of non-human things.

The coercive utilisation of man by man is not felt to be an industrial function; but all effort directed to enhance human life by taking advantage of the non-human environment is classed together as industrial activity.

By the economists who have best retained and adapted the classical tradition, man's "power over nature" is currently postulated as the characteristic fact of industrial productivity.

This industrial power over nature is taken to include man's power over the life of the beasts and over all the elemental forces.

A line is in this way drawn between mankind and brute creation.
In other times and among men imbued with a different body of preconceptions this line is not drawn precisely as we draw it to-day.
In the savage or the barbarian scheme of life it is drawn in a different place and in another way.


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