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<p>This paper examines how a change in moral coding—what counts as purified or polluted—shapes social hierarchies, and structures the redistribution of status. Any structured community, whether a middle school, a university, a sports team, or a company, comprises a “prestige economy” in which the currency is social. Like financial currency, social currency can be saved, spent, invested, or stolen. It can grow or evaporate. And its distribution is unequal. In any prestige economy, social currency and status are allocated through the acquisition or demonstration of that which is valued. In an environment that aims to reward merit, excellence is the standard of value. When a <i>Diversity</i>,<i> Equity</i>,<i> and Inclusion</i> paradigm is introduced, identity replaces excellence as the coin of the realm. When viewed through the lens of prestige economics, “cancel culture” can be understood as a contemporary mechanism through which status hierarchies are reorganized when the moral criteria that structure prestige economies change and social currency is revalued. The rise in antisemitism follows the same logic.</p>

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The mechanics of redistribution in a prestige economy

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月19日

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  • Pamela Paresky

摘要

This paper examines how a change in moral coding—what counts as purified or polluted—shapes social hierarchies, and structures the redistribution of status. Any structured community, whether a middle school, a university, a sports team, or a company, comprises a “prestige economy” in which the currency is social. Like financial currency, social currency can be saved, spent, invested, or stolen. It can grow or evaporate. And its distribution is unequal. In any prestige economy, social currency and status are allocated through the acquisition or demonstration of that which is valued. In an environment that aims to reward merit, excellence is the standard of value. When a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion paradigm is introduced, identity replaces excellence as the coin of the realm. When viewed through the lens of prestige economics, “cancel culture” can be understood as a contemporary mechanism through which status hierarchies are reorganized when the moral criteria that structure prestige economies change and social currency is revalued. The rise in antisemitism follows the same logic.