Explaining society's four invisible currenciesfrom @maisonrickie

Transcript

Let's talk today about some touchy subjects. Status, wealth, prestige, taste. So I've been enamored lately by the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdin. And after looking into his work, I found some really interesting stuff that I felt tier need to share with you. But fair warning, once you see it, you can't un it. For those great insight was that the world is structured by multiple invisible currencies or different types of capital as you call it. The most obvious one is economic capital. So this is your property, your money, your assets. But he identified worst capital. So this is your education. Even your particular acts, it's your ability to reference certain literature at dinner or a piece of art at a gallery. This kind of capital can be boiled down to the environment you grew up in and how it shaped your individual best. The knowledge, the behaviors, the best that signal belonging to a particular social class. It can be embodied. So your manners, the cuisine you like, the music you listen to, or objectified, like, through the books on your shelf, the art that you own, or institutionalized through your degrees, your credentials. Next, you have social count. This one is also quite apparent, but it's your better. Who you no, who will take your calls, which doors open because of your name and your relationships with those people. And in a world dominated by social media, the boundary is now expanded to the access that you get from your digital presence. And lastly, we have symbolic, which is your reputation itself that's reinforced externally through titles, awards, recognition, and prestige. Now worse first, this one kinda threw me for a loop. But broken down simply, it's the capital you gain from external validation and is unique to the particular field that you're in. So in academia, getting published in certain journals is a form of symbolic capital. In fashion, it's being worn by the right people. Now here's a kicker. Bordeaux argued that the elites don't just hoard money. They hoard all these forms of capital, and they transfer in between them. A banker sends his daughter to a prestigious boarding school, turning economic capital into cultural capital. A billionaire donates a ton of money to charity and turns economic capital into symbolic capital in the form of being recognized as a philanthropist. Now this is just scratching the surface of what Bordeaux's contribution to broader society tier. And I plan on diving more into his work in the context of status, wealth, luxury, and taste. So if that sounds interesting to you, like involve a war.