Thorstein Veblen's Absentee Ownership in the Age of the Anthropocene: Law, Technology and Climate Crisis.

This article critically reassesses Thorstein Veblen's 1923 work *Absentee Ownership* in light of contemporary climate change and the Anthropocene epoch. It finds that while Veblen's analysis of financial power and American law remains insightful for understanding the inertia of U.S. energy policy and corporate governance, his concept of "the industrial system" as a closed, mechanically integrated whole fails to account for the system's profound and destabilizing environmental impacts. The article argues that Veblen underestimated how industrial technology itself alters natural processes, particularly through carbon-based energy use, which transcends political or ownership structures and drives climate change. It concludes that addressing the climate crisis requires revising Veblen's framework to recognize the industrial system as an open, ecological force intertwined with the planet's life-support systems, while acknowledging the persistent dominance of absentee ownership and financial interests in resisting transformative change.