CONCEPT
Predatory and Industrial Habits
Veblen's foundational distinction between orientations toward making (industrial) and taking (predatory) — habits cultivated by institutional environments.
Veblen organized all human economic behavior into two fundamental orientations toward the world: industrial habits of thought, oriented toward production, making, and cooperative organization of effort; and predatory habits, oriented toward acquisition, capture, and the extraction of value from others' productive efforts. Industrial habits ask 'How can this be made?' and derive satisfaction from competent production. Predatory habits ask 'How can this be taken?' and derive satisfaction from dominance and having rather than making. These are not fixed personality types but habits cultivated by institutional environments that reward or punish each orientation. The instinct of workmanship is the psychological foundation of industrial habits, while the state of the industrial arts is their collective expression.
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Veblen traced these habits to evolutionary conditions. Industrial habits emerged during the long 'savage' period when survival depended on productive cooperation — making tools, gathering food, building shelter. Predatory habits emerged later in the 'barbarian' period when accumulated surplus made it possible for some to subsist on others' productive effort, captured