Classification Systems and the Veblenian Dichotomy: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Social Stratification

This article blends the analytic tool of the Veblenian Dichotomy from institutional economics with sociological approaches regarding classification systems to better understand social stratification along ceremonial processes. In merging these approaches, we are able to better understand ceremonial encapsulation and provide a framework for future analysis of the way in which ceremonial patterns of dominance are maintained through time, even as new technologies and methods of problem solving emerge that should otherwise erode these patterns. We then apply this framework to the development of data analytics and credit scores to show how they reinforce pre-existing race- and class-based patterns of stratification. As part of this, we show how this serves to reinforce the neoliberal view that inequalities in distribution are to be taken as individual failures, rather than structural and systemic inequalities that can be solved through active public policy. Future research, then, can use this framework in similar ways to help disentangle the enabling myths preventing progressive policy making and institutional adjustment.