The Great Chain of Status?
Last week Henry Farrell over at Crooked Timber objected to the key point of my recent article in Policy (related Cato podcast here), which is that status-seeking need not be a zero-sum game, because there are indefinite dimensions of status competition. (And therefore, the government need do nothing to mitigate the alleged harm of status competition.) It is true that there can only be one winner of every race, but there is no cap on the number or kind of races. The greater the number and variety of races, the more likely it is that everybody will be able to find one in which they can win, place, or at least show. Henry replies:
Wilkinson’s claim implies, unless I misunderstand him badly, that it doesn’t matter very much to me if I’m a despised cubicle rat who can’t afford a nice car and gets sneered at by pretty girls, because when I go home and turn on my PC, I suddenly become a level 75 Night Elf Rogue who Kicks Serious Ass! Now this example is loaded – but it’s loaded to demonstrate a serious sociological point that Wilkinson doesn’t even begin to address. These indefinitely proliferating dimensions of status competition are connected to each other in their own implicit meta-ranking, which is quite well understood by all involved. Being a world-class scrabble-player isn’t likely to win you much respect among people who aren’t themselves competitive scrabble-players; the best you can expect is that someone will write a book that pokes fun at your gastro-intestinal problems . It’s a very different matter if you’re a world class soccer player; you’re liable to be invited to all sorts of fun parties, hit upon by beautiful people, stalked by the paparazzi and the whole shebang. Being a world class blogger is somewhere between the two, albeit certainly much closer to the scrabble-player than the soccer star. Even if you’re king of your own mountain, you’re likely to be quite well aware of the other mountains around you that make yours look in comparison like a low-grade class of a gently sloping foothill, or perhaps even a slightly upraised knob in the middle of a steep declination. You’re similarly aware of those less well-advantaged foothills or knoblets whose owners you can look down upon…. In short, people are highly aware of the relative rankings of their obsessions.
I am unmoved.
I anticipated this objection in a very long blog post back in January. Henry’s argument turns on the claim that “These indefinitely proliferating dimensions of status competition are connected to each other in their own implicit meta-ranking, which is quite well understood by all involved.” I think Henry is wrong that there is shared understanding of the meta-ranking and one’s place in it, and I think he is confusing status, in the sense I was writing about, with fame.
I was talking about status as it is experienced. Higher status correlates with higher concentrations of serotonin, for example, not necessarily because of some objective feature of the world, but because of the subject’s perception (correct or not) of her place in a status hierarchy. Our perception of our place in a status hierarchy is generally constructed from all sort of signals–deference, praise, attention, inattention, mocking–we receive from people in the relevant social group. Henry’s story doesn’t strike me as having anything to do with meta-rankings, but just to do with the fact that at any time there are a number of different status dimensions we care about. If you are, as Henry says, “despised” and “sneered at,” then that may hurt, if you care your status within your office, or with certain pretty girls. But part of my point was that people can and do often arrange their lives to avoid that sort of thing. If they are able to manage it, then the fact that they would be despised and sneered at in other circumstances makes no difference to their status as they experience it.
Here is an example of how I think Henry confuses experienced status and fame. If I am the quarterback of the champion high-school football team in a football-crazy Texas town, my subjective status-meter is likely pegged to the top of the scale. That Peyton Manning is more famous than me, is a better quarterback, makes millions more dollars, and is more likely to impress a random person at a bar, is simply irrelevant. It’s no skin off my back. If I was ever in a room with Peyton Manning, my subjective assessment of my relative standing would no doubt go down. But I’m never in a room with Peyton Manning. In my small pond, I’m a big fish — and I feel like it.
The seminal paper on positional externalities is Robert Frank’s “The Frame of Reference as a Public Good.” I suspect Henry wants to maintain the idea there is a single culture-wide frame of reference against which to evaluate not only our relative position on some dimension of status, but also against which to evaluate the relative position of status dimensions. I think this is exceedingly implausible.
If Henry really thinks there is a widely understood meta-ranking, then he ought to be able to say who is higher-status: Peyton Manning or Chief Justice John Roberts? I happen to think that’s a nonsense question, since there is in fact no common frame of reference against which to compare the status of superstar NFL quarterbacks with superstar judges. Henry is a social democrat political science professor blogger. I’m a libertarian policy wonk blogger. Whose status dimension is higher in the meta-ranking? Obviously, it depends on who you ask. If Henry hangs out with people who confer high status on Henry, and I hang out with people who confer high status on me, then we both experience a sense of high status, and Henry’s doesn’t detract from mine, and vice versa. But suppose, for the sake of argument, that Henry’s dimension is slightly higher in the mysterious zeitgest meta-ranking than mine, but that I rank closer to the top of my dimension. Who’s higher status then? Is the worst player in the NFL higher status than the world’s best Scrabble player? Again: the question is nonsense. There is no common frame of reference.
I’m fully on board with Julian Sanchez’s observation:
I think everyday experience confirms that it’s also emphatically not the case that there is any Great Chain of Being among subcultures. My high school, for instance, was fairly sharply divided into pretty clear cliques with porous but recognizable boundaries. But, contra the 1950s teen movie stereotype, there wasn’t any single ordering of cliques that all of them recognized. Probably the jocks and their hangers on thought it was still 1953, and that they were at the top of the pecking order—the cool kids. But the hippies, the skaters, the computer nerds, the drama kids—they all thought the same thing, ultimately. Just as every faith is the One True Faith to its adherents, every clique is coolest to its members.
The idea that competition for relative position is a zero-sum game that necessarily creates a loser for every winner is the last redoubt of statist egalitarians. The cultural pliability of status, and the fact of our freedom (and responsibility) to opt in and out of status games and to reinterpret the frame of reference against which we judge our lives truly guts the argument. People too often get sucked unwittingly into shiny, culturally salient status races in which we end up suffering, and we too seldom recognize we have the freedom to reevaluate our priorities, and to opt into competing conceptions of a good life better suited to our satisfaction. This is not easy. Once inside a frame of reference for evaluating status, it can be extremely difficult to switch. But it is possible, and it’s much easier if you believe it.
[Also posted at Cato@Liberty]
November 1st, 2006 04:51
All you say about transferring between status races is surely correct in principle, but I just don’t think you are dealing with psychological realities. To use Jonathan Haidt’s terms, you give insufficient respect to the instinct of the elephant, and too much credit to the power of the rider.
You say “it is possible [to switch]. And it is much easier if you believe it” - but this is just to say that people will believe anything with enough CBT. Some games are of higher status than others because some things are, instinctively and in a hard-wired kinda way, more important than others. Being a scrabble champ might make you feel great in the company of lesser players, but it’s surely not qualitatively the same as the feeling of knowing that, say, people respect you because you earn well and provide a good life for yourself and your family?
If you’re right about the relative ease of switching game, it’s a bit of an empirical anomoly that “shiny, culturally salient status races” should exist at all. Could it be that they attain their position, and maintain their allure, because they have their roots in evolutionary priorities?
November 1st, 2006 10:03
Indeed, Will, I’ve met plenty of people who feel that their status as “X” is incredibly important and valuable, although it inevitably loses its luster as they become aware of a larger universe of statuses.
The interesting thing is that “X” is universal - eventually movie stars realize that their movie star status is not very meaningful compared to “the status of being a parent” or what have you.
A number of my friends have taken great pride in their status in online games, and it gives them quite a bit of positive self-image. It can also lead to weight gain, but then being a rock star can lead to heroin, being a star athelete can lead to HGH, and being a famous writer can lead to writer’s cramp.
And I think this can be inverted as well. For example, I have tremendously advanced computer skills. I can manipulate computers in ways that would cause most peoples’ heads to spin. But I don’t really draw a ton of status pride from that (I do draw quite a bit of salary) - because I see carpenters and mechanics able to build things and repair things in ways that I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Objectively, because my salary is significantly higher, I should, in theory feel that my status as a computer geek is far greater than their status as a carpenter. But I don’t feel that way. I feel midly ashamed that I don’t also hold status in carpentry and car repair.
Because there is no meta-status comparison framework.
November 1st, 2006 17:52
Bourdieus idea of habitus and field might be relevant here. In bourdieus world there is an objective hierarchy (bourdieau is a structuralist). Which position you hold in that hierarchy is determined on how much “symbolic capital” you have. Symbolic capital in turn is compiled os “social capital”, “economic capital” and “cultural capital”.
So - from the researches point of view there is an objective hierarchy btw - in which the judge is higher ranked then the quarterback.
From the subjective point of view it is different. The different combinations of the three forms of capital, constitutes a “field”. The members in that field have a certain “habitus” which they find desirable. So the carpenter e.g. don not want to immitate the judge. The carpenter finds the judge activities stupid and bloated. The judge on the other hand things the carpenter is simpleminded and coarse.
So: Bourdieu would say that from the subjective p.o.w. it fine to be a world class scrable player. The happiness is the same as the judge. However because the habitus is so dominant and effectful, the children can not escape the habitus of their parrents. And since it is the people (field) with the most symbolic capital that has the most power over society, the system reproduces it self - with a lack of social mobility as consequence.
I’m sure you all knew bourdieu… Now you do…
November 2nd, 2006 08:12
This is an excellent response.
But there’s a simpler one. There is a universally accepted meta-ranking for wealth — how much money do you have. And yet, this does not stop people from creating wealth, and it doesn’t make wealth zero-sum.
Given some particular meta-ranking, your position on *that* meta-ranking is zero-sum. That’s true of wealth also. That just speaks to how soul-destroying it is to care more about your wealth position than what the wealth you have can do for your life. Because the last is anything but zero-sum.
So to me, talking about the meta-ranking as if it is the be all and end all just obscures the giant universe of wealth and what it means. I am in complete agreement that status works similarly, even when it comes to attracting women.
It’s interesting. Folks like Steve have been bemoaning the problem of status in social newsgroups for years (the term SMV for “sexual market value” became common currency for a while). I and many others have long had insights similar to yours but lacked the metaphor that you and David Friedman (and probably others) have hit on here. I wish I’d had the idea to explain it this way 5-10 years ago when I was still deeply involved in that conversation.
November 8th, 2006 11:22
Economists Are Destroying America
Economists, politicians, and executives from both parties have promised American families that “free” trade policies like NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO/CHINA would accomplish three things:
• Increase wages
• Create trade surpluses (for the US)
• Reduce illegal immigration
Well, their trade policies have been in effect for about 15 years. Let’s review the results:
• Declining real wages for 80% of working Americans (while healthcare, education, and childcare costs skyrocket)
• A record-high 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance (due in part to declining wages and benefits)
• Illegal immigration out of control
• Soaring trade deficits, much with countries that use slave and child labor
• Personal and national debt both out-of-control
• Global environments threatened by lax trade deal enforcement
Economists Keep Advocating Policies That Aren’t Working
Upon seeing incontrovertible evidence of these negative trade agreement results, economists continue with Pollyannish blather. Some say, “Cheer up! GDP is up and the stock market’s doing fine.” Others say, “Be patient. Stay the course. Free trade will raise all ships.”
Even those economists who acknowledge problems with trade agreements offer us only half-measures—adjusting exchange rates, improving safety nets, and providing better job retraining. None of these will close the wage gap in America—and economists know it.
Why Aren’t American Economists Shouting From Street Corners?
America needs trade deals that support American families and businesses in terms of wage, environmental, and intellectual property abuses. Why aren’t economists demanding renegotiation of our trade deals? There are three primary reasons:
• Economists are too beholden to corporations and special interests that provide them with research grants.
• Economists believe—but refuse to admit—that sacrificing the American middle class is necessary and appropriate to generate gains in third world economies.
• Economists refuse to admit they make mistakes.
Economic Ambulance Chasers
Now more than ever, Americans need their economists to speak truth and stand up to their big business clients. Instead, economists sound like lawyers caught chasing ambulances: they claim they’re “doing it for our benefit”.
November 13th, 2006 20:37
hey will,
i heard about this post sequence so i figured i’d check it out. so here’s the thing: isn’t there a difference between status and self-image? status is bound to the opinion of others. you recognize this to the extent that you group people into communities (bloggers, libertarian bloggers etc) to give meaning to the term . i agree that people can raise their self-perceived status by surrounding themselves by a community that is most likely to appreciate their personality, assets, skills, whatever. but people aren’t restricted to a selected community, and as you scale out, people are still evaluated by the larger community, and status still emerges from that. true, in a society of, say, 300 million people, the system by which status is determined is likely to be quite complex (as is the economy or other social systems). but just because you can’t easily determine the relative status of two individuals doesn’t mean that the larger system doesn’t exist… true, as michael sullivan points out, wealth is often used as a proxy for status. of course, as with any proxy it has problems. but also, it is wealth that might help improve individual circumstances and self-image or health/enjoyment. but it is relative wealth that proxies for status. obviously, it’s not a perfect metric because it is a simple proxy for an extremely complex problem. but absolute wealth and relatively wealth are non-zero sum and zero-sum measures that might parallel phenomena you discuss as self-image (bolstered by small communities) and status (that scales to different communities).
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