Some beliefs are held partly because professing them confers status on the affluent while the costs of acting on them fall elsewhere.
Henderson's argument adapts Veblen: where material display has become cheap, opinions serve the signalling function instead, and the ones that signal best are those the holder can afford to be wrong about. The mechanism is plausible and the label is easy to apply to any position one opposes, which is its main weakness.
In practice
- A policy advocated by people insulated from its effects and borne by people who are not is a recurring pattern with several possible explanations.
- A board adopts a standard whose compliance cost falls entirely on its suppliers.
- Possible explanations
- The proposed explanation is signalling: where material display has become cheap, opinions take over the signalling function, and the ones that signal best are those whose costs the holder does not bear.
- In its favour
- The mechanism is a plausible extension of costly signalling, and some beliefs do carry visibly different costs for those who hold them and those affected by them.
- Against it
- It attributes motives that are not observed, and which beliefs qualify is chosen by the person applying the label, so it can be used to dismiss any position without engaging it. No measurement of the claimed motive exists.
- Standing
- A contested interpretive claim rather than a measured finding. It attributes motives that are not observed, and the selection of which beliefs count as luxury is made by the person applying the label.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change