Fashion is but one example of how the American wealthy have been redefining social status through a practice known as countersignaling.
Countersignaling is when you go out of your way to show you don’t need to go out of your way. The boss doesn’t have to wear a tie or even dress up.
If he did, that would suggest he had something to prove, which would be a negative rather than a positive impression.
The next step is that the vice presidents also don’t have to dress up, and soon enough most of the company doesn’t have to dress up.
Similarly, titles such as Dr. and Professor are no longer thrown around with such force, and their excessive use comes off as an overstatement or an embarrassment.
Country clubs seem passé. Jackets and ties are now anachronisms in most of Manhattan’s top restaurants, and if anything, they are likely to reflect the relative poverty rather than the wealth of a visitor to Le Bernardin—maybe it’s a very young man trying to impress a date or a middle manager dressing up so as not to offend a Japanese client.
Americans at the top have become the experts in countersignaling, because they don’t feel they have to impress anyone.
djfrenchfry/FlickrEverything is now casual, because the new aristocracy of talent enforces all the conformity that is needed.
The wealthy have set this tone, most of all in America’s highest-glamour Silicon Valley tech sector. Americans were never a culture of monocles, war medals, and dapper moustaches in the first place; in his day, Alexis de Tocqueville noted a strong American skepticism toward the practice of the duel.
But don’t be fooled—this new form of status-seeking is no less oppressive than older practices, and in some ways it is less conducive to upward mobility. The problem is this: If everything is casual, what exactly do you do to show your seriousness?
Bill Gates wears khaki pants and enjoys McDonald’s, but he has achieved renown as the world’s richest man and one of its most influential philanthropists. He can countersignal all he wants, and he is still Bill Gates and obviously so. A variety of other billionaires and millionaires, or Nobel laureates, carry their reputations with them, too.
splitthekipper/FlickrRecognition is never more than an act of Google away, and so the American notion of class is based all the more on what a person already has done, and the class distinctions are enforced ultimately not by snobby matrons who run social circles but rather by the act of Googling itself.
If you’re 24 years old and looking to get ahead, it can be tougher.
There isn’t such a simple way to visually demonstrate you are determined to join the ranks of the upwardly mobile. Looking smart on “casual Friday” may get you a better date, but the boss will not sit up and take notice. In other words, a culture of the casual is a culture of people who already have achieved something and who already can prove it. It is a culture of the static and the settled, the opposite of Tocqueville’s restless Americans.
In an art gallery or some other high-end retail outlet, the dealers and directors know that very often the biggest spenders walk in the door wearing jeans and sneakers. Those who show up in the suit and tie are less likely to drop $ 10 million on a Basquiat, as the choice of formal garb signals they still have something to prove.
But if you’re just hanging out in a train station and watching travelers pass by, you probably won’t think the same lofty thoughts about those people in the jeans and sneakers; instead, you would sooner assume that those with the suits and ties have more money.
The upshot is this: When it comes to signaling and judging status, significant parts of America are becoming more like the art gallery and less like the train station.
Since the 1960s, the cultures that have produced the most upward economic mobility include Japan, South Korea, and China, due to their supercharged rates of economic growth. It is no accident that these are the same cultures obsessed with business cards, stereotypical blue suits, submission to hierarchical authority, and bringing the perfect gift, among other customs.
The young and ambitious really can set themselves apart from the slackers, even if doing so looks conformist and stifling when multiplied and observed on a larger scale. Societies of upward mobility, when based on large and growing business enterprises, look and feel somewhat oppressive. Much as many of us might not want to admit it, the casual and the egalitarian are closer to enemies than to allies.
Good matches are lots of fun, but in a country with so much social stagnation and extremely good matching, eventually we become aware that we too are most of the time being turned away at the gate.
© 2017 Tyler Cowen. Reprinted with permission from St. Martin’s Press.
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