The Engineers and the Price System / The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers

Politics and investment are still allowed to decide matters of industrial policy which should plainly be left to the discretion of the general staff of production engineers driven by no commercial bias. The Engineers and the Price System is Thorstein Veblen's classic book on industrial sabotage and the inefficiencies of the financial system. For Veblen, financial managers controlling the economy act in ways detrimental to the engineers responsible for production. Since the purpose of the financial system is to maximize profit, financial managers purposely manipulate supplies to this end. The wastefulness of this conduct prompted Veblen to end the book with a call to arms for engineers to become a technocratic ruling class in order to end the mismanagement of the industrial system and bring about a new era of efficient production for the common good. "The Socialist Economics of Karl Marx and His Followers" is a two parts essay giving a historical overview on Karl Marx's theories on socialism and the Marxism later developed by his followers. Also included in this volume is "Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism", a bold essay linking the popularity of socialism with the decrease in relative wealth and the discontentment this causes. Also explored in this essay are the importance of status seeking behaviours and the competition for respectability. Thorstein Veblen was an American economist and social scientist who made important contributions to the study of economic institutions and the study of social class. He is best known for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class which introduced the term "conspicuous consumption".