Synthesized answer
The passages suggest that the leisure class is best developed in higher barbarian culture because this stage exhibits a considerable differentiation of sub-classes within the leisure class itself, such as the noble and priestly classes [2]. These sub-classes have diversified, non-industrial occupations including government, warfare, religious observances, and sports, all of which are not industrial employments and signify superior rank [2]. The exemption of these classes from industrial employments is the economic expression of their superior rank [2].
At an earlier stage of barbarism, the leisure class is found in a less differentiated form, with less intricate class distinctions and distinctions between leisure-class occupations [2]. The most primitive phases, such as nomadic hunting tribes, show the beginnings of the institution of a leisure class, but the exemption from work has not gone far enough for the designation "leisure class" to be fully applicable [1]. The passages indicate that the institution of a leisure class emerged during the transition from primitive savagery to barbarism, or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike…
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From the book
such as are plainly of an industrial character and are only remotely related to the typical leisure-class occupations. If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find the leisure class in fully developed form. But this lower barbarism shows the usages, motives, and circumstances out of which the institution of a leisure class has arisen, and indicates the steps of its early growth. Nomadic hunting tribes in various parts of the world illustrate these more primitive phases of the differentiation. Any one of the North…
r classes are exempt from industrial employments, and this exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank. Brahmin India affords a fair illustration of the industrial exemption of both these classes. In the communities belonging to the higher barbarian culture there is a considerable differentiation of sub-classes within what may be comprehensively called the leisure class; and there is a corresponding differentiation of employments between these sub-classes. The leisure class as a whole comprises the noble and the priestly classes, together with much of their retinue. The…
y in whom the habits of thought peculiar to the barbarian culture have suffered but a relatively slight disintegration. Personal service is still an element of great economic importance, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of goods; but its relative importance even in this direction is no doubt less than it once was. The best development of this vicarious leisure lies in the past rather than in the present; and its best expression in the present is to be found in the scheme of life of the upper leisure class. To this class the modern culture owes much in the way of…
nor does the class necessarily include all primitive communities which have no defined system of individual ownership. But it is to be noted that the class seems to include the most peaceable--perhaps all the characteristically peaceable--primitive groups of men. Indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force or fraud. The evidence afforded by the usages and cultural traits of communities at a low stage of development indicates that the institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the…
of the superior class from work has not gone far enough to make the designation "leisure class" altogether applicable. The tribes belonging on this economic level have carried the economic differentiation to the point at which a marked distinction is made between the occupations of men and women, and this distinction is of an invidious character. In nearly all these tribes the women are, by prescriptive custom, held to those employments out of which the industrial occupations proper develop at the next advance. The men are exempt from these vulgar employments and are reserved for…