Will Wilkinson criticises the happiness movement.
Crucially, there is no limit to the possible forms of excellence. So, while the number of positions on any single dimension of status may be fixed, there is no reason why dimensions of status cannot be multiplied indefinitely. It does not in fact require a violation of mathematical law to produce more high-status positions, for it is possible to produce new status dimensions.
New dimensions of excellence and status often open up due to technological innovation. It was impossible to be a chart-topping pop star or a champion triathalete before there were radios and bikes. Liberal market societies not only create new technologies, they create proliferating forms of association, affiliation, expression, and identity at a sometimes alarming rate. Each musical genre, each hobby, each committee, each church, each club, each ideology, each lifestyle provides a new dimension—a new frame of reference—for positional competition. Environmental purists can compete with one another to conspicuously consume eco-friendly products (or conspicuously refuse to consume much at all), while punk rockers duke it out on grounds of anti-establishment authenticity, and economics professors knock themselves dead trying to get articles into esoteric journals no one else cares about.
The cultural fragmentation some critics lament is precisely what liberates us from unavoidable zero-sum positional conflict. Surfer dudes don’t compete with Star Trek geeks for status. Dynamic market liberal societies create higher-order positive-sum games (for example, the ‘create a new status dimension’ game, or the ‘find the status dimension on which you rank highest’ game) that have lower-order zero-sum games as parts.
Once we recognise the anarchic multi-dimensionality of status, the frequent supposition of Frank, Layard, Cassidy, and others that the distribution of income—whether within the office or within the nation—is the the main dimension of positional competition begins to look bizarre. Struggling artists do not doubt their superiority in the face of successful accountants. And it should not need pointing out that many of us simply don’t know how much our friends make, and don’t much care.
I haven’t read the full article so perhaps there’s something missing but the extract above is confusing. Will suggests that we can escape the zero-sum income-based positional game by doing something else, say becoming a Trekkie. Because something like quoting lines from the TV series is more important than income to a Trekkie, then even if the Trekkie game is lost, it won’t matter for our happiness because only relative income matters. And even if it did hurt, then we can create a positive sum-game by leaving the Trekkies and joining a Dungeons and Dragons club.
Firstly, there has to be a practical limit to the number of positive-sum games out there that I can enjoy in my lifetime. So the infinitess of dimensions is irrelevant.
I agree with the trivial observation that comparisons across peer groups is pretty meaningless. Of course I do not compare my standing to that of a mime artist, hedge fund manager or body-builder, but that is because I am not competing with them. Neither am I competing with my friends. Status comparison is a function of competition. And whilst struggling artists do not compete with accountants, they compete with each other. And even if they don’t use income to measure relative success in that game, they will use something else that serves the purpose of ranking their outcomes in that game. That metric (e.g. auditions) will be the focus of their attention and will determine their happiness relative to others in the same game.
One could even argue that if you’ve left the income game to join the Trekkies, then quoting lines of Star Trek is even more important than money so it could even make you more unhappy remembering less lines, than making less money ever did. Of course, if your ambition as a Trekkie or other hobbyist is to enjoy an onanistic pleasure and not compete, then I concede, you may be happier doing that than losing in the money game.
And on the origins of status,
We are not destined to want fancier cars, bigger houses, and more upscale outfits, nor are we helpless to feel diminished by those who out-consume us. We can opt out by opting in to competing narratives about the composition of a good life. And we do it all the time. We can, like Gauguin, quit law and family to paint naked natives in Tahiti. Or, better, we can move the family to a quieter place where houses are cheap and schools are good. (‘Is this heaven?’ ‘No, Iowa.’) If we are aggrieved by the rigours of the rat race, the answer is not the clumsy guidance of a paternal state. The answer is simply to stop being a rat
The first part of the opeing sentence says that there’s nothing in our nature that leads us to pursue consumption for the hell of it. I agree, more or less. But the second part says ‘losing to your rivals doesn’t hurt’. I don’t believe this for a second. Will’s view appears to suggest that if you get out before you lose (sorry ‘opt-out’), then you’ll be fine.
If you truly believe that when competition in one dimension simply becomes too much, you can cut your losses and leave (aka ‘losing’) then of course, there is no inevitably in pursuing status-driven consumption. Give up the chase and applaud the winners as you make your way to a new race. In reality, for most of us, giving up is not so easy. Exit costs are likely to be high; moving job for example may require a new set of preferences to be identified and satisfied (interestingly, that implies that the ‘original’ preferences may have been, in some sense, ‘wrong’, i.e. it may have been better for an all-knowing other to correct your orignal choice before you made yourself unhappy , but let’s not speak of the ‘P’ word here).
The driving force of evolution is relative success in a common currency (genetic fitness here). From that perspective, it’s unsurprising that in nearly all domains, we care about relative success. It is unescapable, no matter how many new games we move to.
Rather than go from game to game, and in each behaving like 100m sprinter, we should aim to be more like decathletes, spreading our pursuits across varying dimensions, all of which contribute to our happiness, and where winning in one, can’t really be compared to losing in another.
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