A Liberal Theory of Prestige

Earlier empirical and theoretical work showed that members of the public distinguish quite sharply between the rewards of an occupation and its value to society. The present paper argues that the perstige of occupations, as it is ordinarily graded, is a simple average of these two dimensions, implying that prestige has both a factual and a normative component. The argument is theoretical rather than inductive: it begins from the assumption that prestige has both a factual and a normative component. The argument is theoretical rather than inductive: it begins from the assumption that assessments of prestige do in fact involve considerations of economic reward, an it employs the data in conjunction with this well-grounded assumption to infer what other considerations must be involved. The argument is prosecuted by means of polar coordinate analysis. This method is applicable because R2 for the regression of social standing (taken to be a synonym for prestige) on other aspects of occupation is close to one; and virtually all the variance of each vector of occupational assessment lies in a space of three dimensions. The final discussion suggests that, although the data point to the existence of a normative consensus, this consensus bears little relation to prestige in its traditional prestige which bolsters the elite is a fragile thing, whereas the normative consensus on occupational prestige may constitute an important source of legitimation of the distribution of social rewards.