Simon N Patten

The Development of English Thought Simon N Patten

Simon Nelson Patten (1852-1922) was an American economist and social theorist. He is credited with inventing the term social work. And with first expression of the idea of a society of affluence or abundance later also developed by another economist, John Kenneth Galbraith. Patten argued that "poverty could be abolished if (people) would accept values and restraints appropriate to an age of abundance - and discard (ideas) developed through centuries of scarcity." Industrialisation, according to Patten, ushered in a new age of abundance that he termed the "new basis of civilization" (the title of his best-known book). "Over the long run, he believed, economic advance would lead to cultural and spiritual uplife, as satiation with creature comforts and baser amusements would prompt the cultivation of higher aspirations and more refined tastes."