Justice & Law Quote by Thorstein Veblen

Veblen doesn’t bother to argue that law is useless; he argues that it’s misfiled. By putting the law school in the same sentence as fencing and dancing, he wields a deliberately insulting analogy: all three are skilled, status-bearing crafts, but none deserves the university’s aura of disinterested truth-seeking. The jab lands because it flips the prestige hierarchy. Fencing and dancing are obviously “extracurricular,” so their inclusion makes the law school feel suddenly ornamental, a kind of refined training for social combat.

The intent is classic Veblen: expose how institutions launder class interests into “merit.” Law presents itself as a rational, elevated system, but Veblen hears something closer to professional etiquette and procedural gamesmanship. “Substantial merit” is the loaded phrase. He’s not denying intelligence or difficulty; he’s questioning whether the core product of legal education is knowledge in the scientific sense, or merely a credentialing pipeline that produces expert navigators of power.

Context matters. Writing in the early 20th century, Veblen watched universities professionalize and expand, absorbing fields that promised money, influence, and donors. His broader critique of “conspicuous” institutions fits neatly here: the modern university wants to look socially central, and law helps it do that. The subtext is that law school’s real curriculum is the maintenance of existing property and hierarchy, packaged as neutral expertise. By comparing it to fencing, Veblen hints that it trains people not to discover truth, but to win contests under agreed rules - elegant, sanctioned, and ultimately conservative.