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Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption, Veblen’s Business and Industrial Concerns, and W.C. Mitchell’s Essays on Spending and Money: Conceptual Links
Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology (2024)
  • Zdravka Todorova
Abstract
This chapter discusses conceptual links among Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption (1923), the overall work of Thorstein Veblen, and Wesley C. Mitchell’s essays on spending and money. The three authors are concerned with transformations in production, related changes in the organization of consumption, and the effects on people. The approach is based on reading of Kyrk’s book in light of an integrated view of Veblen’s overall work. This chapter explains how Mitchell’s essays on money and spending built on Veblen’s work and discusses their relevance for understanding Kyrk’s book as conceptually linked to institutional economics. This chapter delineates the following commonalities: conception of living humans and money as an institution; distinction between business and industrial concerns; connection between distribution, waste, and consumption; and Veblen’s “machine process” of standardization in production and its relation to consumption. This chapter brings more detail in the conceptual and theoretical discussion of Veblen’s influence on Kyrk’s book.
Keywords
  • Hazel Kyrk;,
  • Institutional Economics;,
  • Thorstein Veblen;,
  • Wesley C. Mitchell,
  • consumption;,
  • theory of consumption;,
  • consumer economics
Publication Date
2024
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542024000041D004
Citation Information
Zdravka Todorova. "Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption, Veblen’s Business and Industrial Concerns, and W.C. Mitchell’s Essays on Spending and Money: Conceptual Links" Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology Vol. 41 Iss. D (2024) p. 27 - 45 ISSN: 978-1-80455-990-1
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/zdravka_todorova/62/