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Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by TuringTest on Thursday May 04, 2017 @06:11AM (#14263776)
Given the context and epoch of the book, I'd guess "barbarian" refers to non-Western, non-industrial societies.

BTW, there's a Wikipedia article about the book. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Clas...

Re:The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen (1899) by mirimir on Thursday May 04, 2017 @09:54PM (#14270547)
Yes, pre-industrial.

But as far as I can tell, so far, he doesn't clearly define the term in the book.