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nydus/The Theory of Business EnterprisePublic

Thorstein Veblen examines the modern industrial system as a structure defined by the machine process and investment for profit. He analyzes how business enterprise and the pursuit of financial gain serve as the primary forces directing contemporary economic organization.

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Table of Contents

The Machine Process

regard to the exigencies of the process whereby this range of human needs is served, if full advantage is to be taken of this system of intercourse, which means that, in so far, one's plans and projects must be conceived and worked out in terms of those standard units which the system imposes. For the population of the towns and cities, at least, much the same rule holds true of the distribution of consumable goods. So, also, amusements and diversions, much of the ciurent amenities of life, are organized into a more or less sweeping process to which those who would benefit by the advantages offered must adapt their schedule of wants and the disposition of their time and effort. The frequency, duration, intensity, grade, and sequence are not, in the main, matters for the free discretion of the individuals who participate. Throughout the scheme of life of that portion of mankind that clusters about the centres of modem culture the industrial process makes itself felt and enforces a degree of conformity to the canon of accurate quantitative measurement. There comes to prevail a degree of standardization and precise mechanical adjustment of the details of everyday life, which presumes a facile and unbroken working of all those processes that minister to these standardized human wants, j As a result of this superinduced mechanical I regularity of life, the livehhood of individuals is,

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