ABSTRACT
Economists take preferences as given, as external to the system being considered. Preferences are "derived" from ways of life in two analytically distinct senses. First, by putting preferences and ways of life in a means-end reasoning chain, individuals can deduce their preferences from their way of life. Second, preferences emerge as unintended consequences of attempting to organize social life in a particular way. The ubiquity of preferences presses us to look beyond the individual's chain of reasoning (a small number of premises generating a large number of preferences) to the unintentional choices that are created for people by certain modes of social interaction. Controlling envy is of paramount importance in hierarchy because its way of life institutionalizes inequality. Ostentation is reserved for the collectivity—grand palaces, public works, ornate buildings in which the complexity of design mimics the near-infinite gradations of social structure.
