It's true, as Anne Mayhew writes, that Veblen idealized engineers; and
Hoover was an engineer. However, as Sec. of Commerce and President Hoover
acted the way Veblen saw lawyers and tycoons acting, to train the incapacity
of American business, with his program of "associationism", a model for the
NRA of the Moley period of FDR. 

I haven't read the Mayhew-Knoedler article cited, but I'd be interested to
know how they handled this antinomy, if Prof. Mayhew will oblige.

Mason Gaffney