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Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
page 39 of 368 (10%)
but morally impossible to the noble, freeborn man, and
incompatible with a worthy life.

This tabu on labour has a further consequence in the industrial
differentiation of classes. As the population increases in
density and the predatory group grows into a settled industrial
community, the constituted authorities and the customs governing
ownership gain in scope and consistency. It then presently
becomes impracticable to accumulate wealth by simple seizure,
and, in logical consistency, acquisition by industry is equally
impossible for high minded and impecunious men. The alternative
open to them is beggary or privation. Wherever the canon of
conspicuous leisure has a chance undisturbed to work out its
tendency, there will therefore emerge a secondary, and in a sense
spurious, leisure class -- abjectly poor and living in a
precarious life of want and discomfort, but morally unable to
stoop to gainful pursuits. The decayed gentleman and the lady who
has seen better days are by no means unfamiliar phenomena even
now. This pervading sense of the indignity of the slightest
manual labour is familiar to all civilized peoples, as well as to
peoples of a less advanced pecuniary culture. In persons of a
delicate sensibility who have long been habituated to gentle
manners, the sense of the shamefulness of manual labour may
become so strong that, at a critical juncture, it will even set
aside the instinct of self-preservation. So, for instance, we are
told of certain Polynesian chiefs, who, under the stress of good
form, preferred to starve rather than carry their food to their
mouths with their own hands. It is true, this conduct may have
been due, at least in part, to an excessive sanctity or tabu
attaching to the chief's person. The tabu would have been
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