According to Wikipedia: "Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Tosten Bunde Veblen (July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist and a primary mentor, along with John R. Commons, of the institutional economics movement. He was an impassioned critic of the performance of the American economy, and is most famous for his book The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)."