Life is just a game we play —
and there is no special way!
-Ken Keyes
The Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Ch. 17
From the Institute of Economic Affairs:
Over the past few years, spiked online
magazine has consistently and robustly defended the principle of free
speech against the censorship demands of the politically correct,
whatever quarter they may come from. It is great, of course, that there
is at least one magazine in which the phrase ‘I believe in free speech’ is unlikely to be followed by a ‘but…’, and more likely to be followed by an ‘even for…’. But while I fully support the spiked line, I also think the spiked
authors sometimes misinterpret the intentions of the ‘PC brigade’, and
would like to offer an alternative interpretation rooted in boring,
old-fashioned textbook economics.
Spiked authors believe that PC is driven by a loathing for ordinary people. According to spiked,
PC brigadiers view ordinary folks as extremely impressionable, easily
excitable, and full of latent resentment. Exposure to the wrong
opinions, even isolated words, could immediately awaken the lynch mob.
PC, then, is about protecting ‘the vulnerable’ from the nasty tendencies
of the majority population.
But if PC was not really about protecting anyone, and really all
about expressing one’s own moral superiority, PC credentials would be
akin to what economists call a ‘positional good’.
A positional good is a good that people acquire to signalise where
they stand in a social hierarchy; it is acquired in order to set oneself
apart from others. Positional goods therefore have a peculiar property:
the utility their consumers derive from them is inversely related to
the number of people who can access them.
Positionality is not a property of the good itself, it is a matter of
the consumer’s motivations. I may buy an exquisite variety of wine
because I genuinely enjoy the taste, or acquire a degree from a
reputable university because I genuinely appreciate what that university
has to offer. But my motivation could also be to set myself apart from
others, to present myself as more sophisticated or smarter. From merely
observing that I consume the product, you could not tell my motivation.
But you could tell it by observing how I respond once other people start
drinking the same wine, or attending the same university.
If I value those goods for their intrinsic qualities, their
increasing popularity will not trouble me at all. After all, the
enjoyment derived from wine or learning is not fixed, so your enjoyment
does not subtract from my enjoyment. I may even invite others to join me
– we can all have more of it.
But if you see me moaning that the winemakers/the university have ‘sold
out’, if you see me whinging about those ignoramuses who do not deserve
the product because they (unlike me, of course) do not really appreciate
it, you can safely conclude that for me, this good is a positional
good. (Or was, before everybody else discovered it.)...MORE
There are a few ways to make a couple bucks off positional goods, more to come.
