Thorstein Veblen and W. E. B. Du Bois’ Critiques of the Antebellum South: Merging Divergent Approaches

In “The Theory of the Master Class: A Veblenian Perspective on the Antebellum South,” Jerry Phillips amplifies Thorstein Veblen’s insights about the evolution of class relations as profoundly dependent on slavery as a “predatory scheme,” a century after the publication of The Theory of the Leisure Class. Phillips says: “[b]y offering an incisive analysis of the historical career of ‘the predatory animus,’ The Theory of the Leisure Class asks us to imagine a future society in which peaceable values are predominant and predatory institutions are obsolete.” Invoking the work of W. E. B. Du Bois as Veblen’s counterpart critic of the day, I wish to counterbalance the critique of modern capitalism, which accounts for but is not limited to class relations as articulated by Karl Marx and Veblen. In doing so, I hope to tease out the notion of dividuation as the linchpin with which to articulate the essential role that enslavement plays in capitalism and to explain the ongoing expropriation and decimation of personhood in the present. The primary objective here is to contrast Veblen’s and Du Bois’ critical engagement with slavery and highlight the notion of dividuation to shed light on the extractive nature of American enslavement.