The Frankfurt School and the problem of social rationality in Thorstein Veblen

The Frankfurt School attacked Veblen's claims regarding machine-induced rat ionality in industrial society. Their criticisms stemmed in part from the f act that Veblen failed to present his ideas systematically in a formal trea tise on either economics or sociology, and because he did not use concepts or jargon familiar to the critical theorists. This article thus aims at: (1 ) demonstrating through textual exegesis the meaning of social rationality in the corpus of Veblen's writing, especially The Theory of Business Enterp rise (1904); (2) elucidating the problems that arose in the Frankfurt Schoo l's critique of Veblen because he used nomenclature and conceptualizations unfamiliar to Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer; (3) reite rating Veblen's thesis on the impact of 'transfer effects' on workers inter acting with the machine process; and (4) outlining the failure of the Frank furt School adequately to examine his claims in the American political envi ronment in which they were made.