Conclusion

Veblen died in 1929, long before the economic analysis of law took on anything like the scale and shape it knows today, and it is difficult to estimate his influence on its later developments.

A handful of practitioners in the generation immediately succeeding Veblen - including Walton Hamilton, Thurman Arnold and Robert Lee Hale - acknowledged his influence on their work; but the direct legacy seems to have been broken there. If there has been a Veblenian factor in the latter-day evolution of the movement, its efficacy has been more diffuse. On the one hand, Veblen may be seen as a prophet, one who did not live to see the promised land of ‘law and economics’, but who performed a vital function in demystifying a profession that tended to take itself altogether too seriously. On the other hand, he may plausibly be blamed for having retarded the field’s advance with his intemperance, the absurdist excesses of his rhetoric, and the all-round opacity of his writing style. If the old institutionalism and the new institutionalism have missed some opportunities for fruitful cross-fertilization, perhaps Veblen must bear some responsibility.

Bibliography

Works by Veblen

1897 ‘Review of Antonio Labriola’s Essais sur la conception matcrialiste de Γhistoire∖ Journal of Political Economy, 5, 390-91; reprinted in Veblen (1973, pp. 461-3).

1898a ‘The barbarian status of women’, American Journal of Sociology, 4, 503-14; reprinted in Veblen (1934, pp. 50-64).

1898b ‘The beginnings of ownership’, American Journal of Sociology, 4, 352-65.

1899 The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of the Evolution of Institutions, New York: Macmillan.

1904 The Theory of Business Enterprise, New York: Scribner’s.

1905 ‘Review of Robert Francis Harper’s The Code of Hammurabi, Journal of Political Economy, 13, 319-20; reprinted in Veblen (1973, pp. 525-7).

1909 ‘The limits of marginal utility’, Journal of Political Economy, 17; reprinted in Veblen (1919, pp. 231-51).

1914 The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, New York: Macmillan.

1915 Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution, New York: Macmillan.

1917 An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of Its Perpetuation, New York: Macmillan.

1919 The Place of Science in Modern Civilization and Other Essays, New York: Huebsch.

1923 Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America,

New York: Huebsch.

1934 Essays in Our Changing Order (ed. Leon Ardzrooni), New York: Augustus M. Kelley. 1973 Essays, Reviews and Reports (ed. Joseph Dorfman), New York: Augustus M. Kelley.

Conclusion

More on the topic Conclusion: