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Q. What is the main contribution of Thorstein Veblen in international political economy?

Smith, Veblen and Polanyi never aimed at eliminating the market.they were interested in understanding the social and cultural foundations of markets and how markets (sometimes with help from governments) can solve socioeconomic problems.His analyses never focused exclusively on the economic, but instead tried to combine sociopolitical, anthropological and psychological aspects within an 'evolutionary' and institutionalist framework - all of which grounded in his understanding of human nature and its dynamic interrelationships with the social process (Dowd, 2002: 37).Veblen's primary goal was to understand the culture of capitalism, which he called the 'pecuniary culture.' From his point of view, the leisure class advertised its superiority through 'conspicuous consumption' and the public and/or private displaying of its material wealth (Veblen, 1899/1994: 78). The members of the leisure class were exempt from more industrial occupations and instead had honored forms of employment (Veblen, 1899/1994: 1). The importance of this for Veblen was that the leisure class was emulated by all other (lower and labor) classes.Veblen's contribution to a better understanding of IPE is related to his cultural and institutionalist perspective on economics. Culture is based and reproduced on the basis of purposefully established and commonly accepted norms and rules. However, those norms and rules may change under specific circumstances.Veblen's insights regarding consumer culture - especially its stabilization process into commonly accepted institutions - go hand in hand with recently growing social constructivist scholarship on IPE and globalization which reinterpret global economic relations as socially embedded and therefore socially constructed relations.Veblen's perspective on economics underlines the need for theoretical discussions in IPE to incorporate cultural (or soft) aspects of economic behavior which represent deep-rooted, yet flexible normative foundations of the contemporary global political economy.With regard to the fair trade issue, however, Veblen's perspective can provide a criticism of the movement as well. It remains to be seen if emulative behavior, in Veblen's sense, can enlarge the impact of socially aware consumption and transform a fast growing niche market into a more mainstream, but still market-based, phenomenon.