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

CHAPTER Thirteen ~~ Survivals of the Non-Invidious Interests
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An appreciable share of the funds is spent in the construction of an edifice faced with some aesthetically objectionable but expensive stone, covered with grotesque and incongruous details, and designed, in its battlemented walls and turrets and its massive portals and strategic approaches, to suggest certain barbaric methods of warfare.

The interior of the structure shows the same pervasive guidance of the canons of conspicuous waste and predatory exploit.

The windows, for instance, to go no farther into detail, are placed with a view to impress their pecuniary excellence upon the chance beholder from the outside, rather than with a view to effectiveness for their ostensible end in the convenience or comfort of the beneficiaries within; and the detail of interior arrangement is required to conform itself as best it may to this alien but imperious requirement of pecuniary beauty.
In all this, of course, it is not to be presumed that the donor would have found fault, or that he would have done otherwise if he had taken control in person; it appears that in those cases where such a personal direction is exercised--where the enterprise is conducted by direct expenditure and superintendence instead of by bequest--the aims and methods of management are not different in this respect.

Nor would the beneficiaries, or the outside observers whose ease or vanity are not immediately touched, be pleased with a different disposition of the funds.

It would suit no one to have the enterprise conducted with a view directly to the most economical and effective use of the means at hand for the initial, material end of the foundation.


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