Thorstein Bunde Veblen, a Norwegian-American sociologist and economist, calculated the value of handmade way back in 1899. At a time when the industrial revolution was just gaining high ground, Veblen figured that the order of satisfaction derived from a handmade luxury article was ten times more than that afforded by a similar machine-made one.Machine-made has improved a gazillion times since then, but looking around me, I don't think the pleasure ratio has changed all that much. In fact, I would say it has gone up!
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