Veblen's study indicts the nineteenth-century socio-economic system which based class status on
the accumulation of material wealth. More than a century after its original publication his
work still is of surprisingly high relevance since it casts an astonishingly contemporary and
often very satirical eye on American economics and society. Originally released in 1899 The
Theory of the Leisure Class is considered as the first detailed critique of consumerism.
