ARNOLD KLING
August 14, 2011
The Top Political Contributors
August 11, 2011
Gender and the New Commanding Heights
August 11, 2011
Jamie Galbraith Makes an Assumption
August 11, 2011
Macroeconometrics: The Science of Hubris
August 10, 2011
Real and Nominal Bond Yields
BRYAN CAPLAN
August 14, 2011
The Effect of Thumb Sucking on Income
August 12, 2011
The Voice of Cold, Hard Truth to All Would-Be Educators
August 12, 2011
Ability, Morality, and Prosperity: A Paper and a Report
August 11, 2011
The Theory of Time and Frittering
August 10, 2011
Male Variance and the Remnants of the Gender Gap
DAVID HENDERSON
August 9, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken", Part Two
August 8, 2011
Hayek in "Unbroken"
August 5, 2011
James Bovard on the Peace Corps
August 4, 2011
Summers Way Off on FDR and 1941
August 3, 2011
The "Amazon" Tax
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Perish the thought that academics might have swapped potential wealth for the status of the title Professor.
Well, since dispensing with status calculations is absurdly utopian and dangerously naive, we will have to find a way to live with them. Is this a case of market failure? Almost everyone has a utility function that includes status, with the odd abnegating Buddhist monk perhaps as an outlier.
Tom Wolfe's books have been primarily about status-seeking for the last 40 years. Some of the status-seeking behavior is quite creative, as when people bail out of the existing status pyramid and start their own leagues centering around designing krazy kustom kars or surfing or NASCAR or whatever.
But the high end Manhattan status-seeking of "Bonfire of the Vanities" seems mostly a waste, in part because of the degeneration of elite taste from the days of the robber barons. The art the elite subsidizes today is either frozen old stuff (symphonies, etc.) or tawdry new crud designed to shock the bourgeoisie.
It's not as if you can force people to seek profit instead of status.
The reality is that the drive for status has driven a tremendous amount of economic growth that otherwise wouldn't have occurred. AK decries happiness research, but if it weren't for status-seeking, I think the results of happiness studies would be a lot more relevant to our world: I believe that people wouldn't really be driven to make more than $5k/yr or whatever amount above which increases in income don't seem to increase happiness.
Most people consider themselves above-average drivers. On the same principal, most people can be happy about their status if they get to choose the basis on which they self-evaluate their status.
If Zeno can look down on Epicurus because he has greater self-mastery, and Epicurus on Zeno because he has more fun, then both Zeno and Epicurus are happier for it.
Wow, this guy is brilliant; that essay is spot on!
I would like to see that some logic taken a step further and see what actual changes can be made that would translate this insight into real benefit.
AK: apologies, my teasing was pointless - I have now read your piece and see you made that very point.
Status seeking explains much of philanthropy. People do a lot of good by simply wanting to enjoy "nice guy" status. Status seeking explains holding the door, helping old ladies across the street, etc.
Are these optimal outcomes? Often, no. Nonprofit fundraising can be very inefficient. Many universities just sock that cash into an endowment. They spend the earnings on silly things, too.