The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even the lowest can get ahead without being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return.
The result of that process - that a low-status-looking, fat, filthy, cowardly trader ends up driving a BMW - is hated by the public, who would rather see a proud warrior in that BMW, winning it through status instead of lowly trade. But fuck that. I hope trade keeps ascending, and people who are disliked but provide good things to others - cowardly traders, smelly nerds, the whole sad group that I identify with - keep getting more good stuff in lieu of status competition.
> The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even low-status "omegas" can get ahead without ever being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return.
"Trade" doesn't let you escape status. "Omegas" who get ahead by being smart are competing for status and are "seen as superior or excellent".
Humans have built all this stuff because we have been able to invent arbitrary status games. If our status games were only about some combination of physical size and cunning, we'd still be living in a "state of nature".
Trade is the opposite of a zero-sum status game: it creates gains and shares them among participants. (Gains from trade exist whenever Alice and Bob have different rates of exchange between good X and good Y.) Success in trade doesn't come from being better than others and making them less successful, it comes from trading with others and making them more successful.
I think you're making a good point but I don't think it has to do with status (as understood by the author of this article). Status games aren't necessarily zero-sum. "Facilitators" can accrue status without being directly involved in anything. Harvey Weinstein never directed a movie; Steve Jobs never built a computer.
I don't think you can escape status games while interacting with other people. Things that people compete for grant status. That includes money, fame, and even notoriety. If you invent some game (i.e. trading) and you earn lots of money doing it, then people will mimic you, and suddenly you're playing a status game even if that was never your intention.
Even opting out of status games is a status game (as the article points out). If you decide "I'm going to live in the woods alone," some reporter is going to follow you and write a story about you. That actually happens a lot! Maybe if you successfully remove yourself from all other people until you die so that there's no trace of you anywhere, you've opted out. But that's hard to do and we never hear about the people who do it (for obvious reasons).
I think that's way overstated. As an outsourcer in Moscow working for Western companies, I got plenty of gains from trade, despite having lower status than Western folks. And remember how China took over world trade while being so low status that "made in China" was a joke?
Moscow has a relatively high status. Russia is nearer the top than it is to the bottom of the 196.
To pick an aribtrary example WITHOUT casting aspertions because that’s not my goal - a Somalian company producing the best product X would struggle severely against a trashy X made in, again arbitrary choice, China.
Yes, competing on quality requires trust, which you call "status". If you don't have that, you must spend some time competing on price first. That's how China did it (and has now moved up to making iPhones) and how Somalia can do it as well. See also: Indian software outsourcing used to be a total joke, but it was cheap, and now look at the demographics of Google including the CEO.
> Humans have built all this stuff because we have been able to invent arbitrary status games.
No, humans have built all this stuff because it provides value to more and more people. Time spent on status games is time not spent doing something productive.
No, people care about it because it produces valuable things. People would still care about productivity even if nobody had the slightest idea what status was.
> Why do people care about "valuable things"? Status
No, they care about them because they need them. People need food, clothing, shelter, companionship, and many other things. People also provide those things. Producing those things and trading for them is not "status"; it's filling genuine needs.
While I'm sympathetic to your view (status feels very "high school", and in some ways profoundly boring), I'd like to make a case for The Good Parts of status (as well it's bottom-up cousin, "prestige" [0]).
I can't remember where I read it (probably also Simler?), but I love the aphorism that "honor can sometimes buy gold, but gold can never buy honor". In addition to the fungible, zero-sum-ish resource economy, there is also a parallel non-zero-sum reputation economy. While this can sometimes be meritless and lacking in positive externalities (Instagram influencers, "being famous for being famous"), it can also manifest in incentivizing pro-social behavior (community contributions, GitHub stars).
Just as the same market mechanisms underlie both the good and bad parts of capitalism (wealth creation vs. rent-seeking), the motivation to climb status hierarchies and earn reputation is a double-edged sword, sometimes resulting in good behavior (competition to be the most cooperative), and sometimes in leveraging status exploitatively or even harmfully (searching for a term here; status arbitrage? status market failure?).
The greatest invention of civilization is trade, which makes status obsolete. In a society that upholds property rights of everyone, even the lowest can get ahead without being seen as superior or excellent. Just offer something that other people want to have, and ask for a little money in return.
The result of that process - that a low-status-looking, fat, filthy, cowardly trader ends up driving a BMW - is hated by the public, who would rather see a proud warrior in that BMW, winning it through status instead of lowly trade. But fuck that. I hope trade keeps ascending, and people who are disliked but provide good things to others - cowardly traders, smelly nerds, the whole sad group that I identify with - keep getting more good stuff in lieu of status competition.