ANOINTED: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World, sets out to do just that

ANOINTED: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World
TOBY STUART
Simon & Schuster (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A leading organizational theorist takes us deep into the realm of humanity’s most powerful invisible force—social status—and how it shapes everything from who we trust and what we value to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.

Why does an authentic Rembrandt fetch hundreds of millions while a nearly identical painting by his most talented disciple goes for a tiny fraction of that price? What makes a restaurant “hot,” a neighborhood “up-and-coming,” or a technology “the next big thing”? Why do people often choose the same seats in recurrent office meetings? Who is most likely to interrupt someone else mid-sentence? Why do big name lawyers earn so much? Why are health disparities so pronounced? And why, when someone gets a bit ahead in life, does the small advantage so often compound?

The answer to all these questions is social status—invisible hierarchies that influence every aspect of our lives, from our health to our personal relationships and careers to how we behave in social and work settings to the tastes and preferences we form. Without it, we’d be lost and paralyzed when faced with even the simplest decisions. But it comes at a steep status works as a powerful amplifier, turning small initial advantages into insurmountable leads. Inequality is baked into its core.

Through compelling examples from business, economics, literature, art, fashion, and beyond, Anointed demonstrates how status cascades through society, creating winners and losers in ways that often have little to do with merit. And how new technology offers a glimpse of a more equitable future.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Analyzing what inequality *does* is pretty much the most important topic in the vastly-more-polarized world of 2025. Why it does those things is harder to pin down because that makes the researcher confront very touchy topics like racism, sexism, class snobbery...all very germane to the topic but also more fungible due to their seeming inevitability. In a world with slavery going on in it this exact instant yet that fact being unacknowledged, unacknowledgable in fact, how does one tease out the roots of the practice? Never mind that it goes back over five thousand years. That we're sure of.

So what's the evidence we have, mountains and mountains of it, say? That inequality exists, that it does some good things...you specifically and personally have the following choices based on your status is a good way to avoid overload when making decisions...and bad ones like "this thing you need to save your life is not available to people of your status." There are obviously many points along the continuum between those arbitrarily opposed points. The author is more careful in framing his examples than I choose to be in this review. As you'd expect.

The conferred prestige of social worth by being in some specific in-group is a golden passkey to benefits at every level of human endeavor. The author does a cracking job of putting this fact before us in blue-chip language backed by stellar research done in prestigious institutions. What does it mean is permaybehaps not always as clear. Does the author, does the data more importantly, support the common perception that this is unjust?

To whom?

There is a lot of data digested, a lot of analysis done, and at the end of the read...copiously annotated and with a very impressive bibliography...I do not have an answer to give you. There may be no answer to be found in the data.

So, my idea is: look at the data left unexamined. No one can look at everything. Do this same himalaya of work with the other stuff. This book is a terrific curiosity lighter, an excellent introduction to the study of inequality, and not an epitome or summation of it. Nor does the author present it as such. He makes no claims to resolving any debates, he presents case studies...the Rembrandt one he opens with is very trenchant indeed...he leads you through facts that illuminate the issues and then expects you'll do some work.

People who vaguely wonder "why does my boss get a reserved spot near the door?" are well-advised to get this study into their grasp. Status and prestige are very important in your daily life, it behooves you to get a handle on how and (to an extent) why they exist.

The best companion read to this book is Steven Pinker's latest, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life. "What everyone knows" is a hugely powerful forever.