Institutional economist Clarence Ayres espoused a conception of technology based on culture. Ayres defined the distinctions between material and nonmaterial culture in his philosophy on basic social institutions. His culture-conception of technology is similar to that of Thorstein Veblen. Like Ayres, Veblen asserts that institutions embedded in culture dominate human behavior. Moreover, the structure of technology does not connote progress. Rather, it is the instrumental function of that structure vis-à-vis culture evolution that should be valued as progress.
