Identity Capital

Definition

Cote (2005) summarises and defines the qualities associated with Identity Capital as: 

"the mental wherewithal that people can possess as part of an agentic personality; the ability to move, both concretely and abstractly, among groups and networks with diverse interests; and the adaptive ability to combine diverse resources as the situation dictates."

In the article he elaborates further... 

"..these resources can have an inoculation quality in the sense that they can enable people to reflexively resist and/or act back upon certain social forces impinging upon them (see Schuller et al., 2004a, p. 182), like corrosive market forces. In this way, people should be more likely to develop senses of: authorship over their own biographies, taking responsibility for their life choices, and creating meaningful and satisfying lives for themselves and their significant others (as opposed to the consumer identity foisted by predatorial marketers). When developed in this way, there is a moral–ethical component to identity capital resources involving obligation and reciprocity that links them with social capital bonds, especially intergenerational ones."

Dialectical Materialism

For me Identity Capital is heavily influenced by the older notion of personal, professional and sociological growth via dialectical materialism. The subjective narratives that Cote refers to describe objective practices and, vice versa, the objective practices enact the subjective narratives. What is co-produced (through narratives and practices) is the position of people within a social order of structural relations. Thus, my identity is constructed and maintained at the point where political ideology interacts with material economy: where the anecdote yields to, and eventually becomes, the habit.

Information has value because it can be communicated across social and geographical distances, but it is the knowledge that it feeds that is accumulated and embodied in a living organism. The act of agency may or may not be intended by the perceiving agent. The dissociations between the word and the deed, and between you and me, are mostly temporary but the distortions between them and us are often permanent. I would contend that the coherence between narrative and practice that constitutes a coherent identity can only occur in the mental and physical realisation of sentient beings, inhabiting the same class, talking the same language. This means my identity is the realisation of a "class consciousness" that is divided between its domestic-consumer and its professional-producer structural relations.

The Enlightenment

At the dawn of the enlightenment Proudhon famously said "All property is theft: All slavery is robbery". This defined the contradictory relations of class, gender and race that embedded exploitation in industrial capitalism over the last Century. With a tongue in cheek nod to the old anarchist Proudhon, I would like to highlight the increasing encroachment of the mass market into our private domestic relationships and subjective narratives, by declaring: "All sex is political: All parenting is economic". Laugh, yes, but let me elaborate. Information theory, and the unstoppable progress of information technology, is the primary surface upon which we can paint the dialectics of our minds in real-time. The dialectics of the binary become meaningful only when they are unified. The unification of the opposites becomes possible in the narratives of social life. These narratives and subject-object practices will define the structural relations of the next Century according to the preceding couplet.

Exploitation

Consider this, exploitation may be the clothes that privilege wears when it is organising the lives of others. However, we also privilege others to exploit us through our own actions. The chains of slavery are welded in the history of our own internal contradictions. In the self-defeating predilection to seek rewards in return for the punishments that we would much rather avoid. These are the chains of our addictions that make us repeat our own mistakes and make the privileging of others possible.

Identity Capital

Identity is important. It is one of your most important assets. So much so that in the UK your identity is currently classed as a ‘protected characteristic’; if it involves your (self-defined) gender, sexual, racial, or ethnic identity. Not so much your class identity though. That is not deemed important enough, for some reason. Your professional identity is not protected either. And neither is your work-role identity. Thus, the exploitation of people by unscrupulous employers, through the denial of the true identity of the producer of goods and services, goes on unchecked.

We know this is the classic means by which exploitation occurs. We still visit country mansions and hear the guide tell us that ‘King or Queen X built this pile in year Y’; music companies still release recordings by ‘solo artists’ who sing songs written by uncredited writers that are played by un-named session musicians. History has taught us that the artists themselves can also be exploited – as can the King or Queen. But these are developments through successive generations of capitalism. They have no fixed relationship to the antiquated structures of feudalism, other than the more or less socio-economic reality of a person’s survival value being reckoned against their credit and/or debt rating.

Children grow up wanting to be the King or the Queen or the famous artist, not the unknown slave, but almost immediately they put themselves in ideological debt through doing so. Thus, we live in a culture that has created ‘celebrity’ as a form of capital via the exploitation of identity. The myths, iconography and metaphors of a culture construct heroes, gods and values that divide the spotlight of public attention into light and shade. The audience remains forever in the wings with their sins, their crimes, and all their other obligatory metal chains well hidden.

The audience is conflicted. At one and the same time the supporting casts and playwrights, who project and introject dreams, through protagonists inhabiting a shared language, to compete in writing the scripts for their children’s futures. They create heaven and hell, rich and poor, love and hate, right and wrong, good and bad, but they know deep down it is all a figment of their own imagination. The only truth of their own existence is the negation of this fantasy, either through legal, scientific or political disputes or, perhaps ultimately, through death. "I think NOT - therefore, I am!"

Sex and Gender

As evidence for the construction of identity let us consider the difference between sex and gender. Sex-role stereotypes have been found to influence parenting relationships from birth. There is a clear system of cultural practices that the child has to learn as they become an adult in order to attract a sexual partner. The process of their engagement and marriage, cohabitation and child-rearing practices are set out in a cultural life script that overlays the biological drives motivating them. The partnership becomes one of working out and working through emotional experiences. Or the relationship fails and the whole cycle of courtship begins again. 

There is evidence that within any relationship the partners work out their respective roles, such that, in a cohabiting relationship, the binary opposites, the masculine and feminine aspects of self and other, if you like, are broadly aligned, so that they come to complement each other, rather than compete. But take a closer look, beyond the stereotypical 'masculine' and 'feminine' traits that form our sexual identities, beyond the iconography that pervades the media and embeds itself within our collective psyche. The male-ness and the female-ness that we take for granted is controlled by only one pair of the 23 chromosomes making up our genetic code. This is a gross imbalance. There are 22 other pairs of chromosomes that have been equally contributed by our respective male and female parents.

Thus, when as sexual partners we look for explanations for our emotions, it is advisable to look beyond the sex to understand our gender. If we compare our traits and genetic makeup against our parents' traits, we might see that we have traits given to us by both the male and the female parent alike. Our gender, therefore, is more amorphous than our sex. The expression of the genes may be more or less determined by the social circumstances, and they are not hardwired until adulthood, but they are there, in different parts of the body, all the time. Perhaps, if we are fortunate enough to have compared ourselves against our brothers and sisters it is also possible to judge our genetic similarities and differences in that way. A family can marvel at how their parents’ genes have been distributed, probably at random, amongst them. Perhaps in this way we can conclude that it is but a lottery of chance which genes one gets, in comparison to the order that is imposed upon us by the pressure to conform to the cultural life script. 

But look again at the differences that exist between our families and the lack of migration our families experience between the different social strata. It is almost as though each family is adapted to the social strata it exists within. Do we find it harder to exist outside of our socialised norms than we do to stay within them? What happens to our identities when we try to move from one social stratum to the next? Unless our identities are totally impervious to the forces of socialisation, there has to be some effect?     

Identity Development

There are many people whose relationship with their parents was missing, damaged or distorted in some way. If that is you, then it is likely that you will have found it harder to understand yourself, and the way your genetic traits work, through understanding your 'caregivers', and the way their traits worked. Your identity may not have developed to its fullest potential and this may have left you vulnerable to having a mental health crisis.

Children who grew up in care do not feel the same sense of security that other children do as they move into adulthood. They can have problems developing their own sense of purpose through, for instance, a University education.  They are more likely to adapt to circumstances rather than have circumstances adapt to their own needs. Children who witnessed domestic violence, often in the context of substance misuse, may not be able to bring their identities together into a unified whole. They may be constantly unable to accept to warring parts of themselves.

If the child was the subject of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse themselves, they will probably have internalised a parental figure that is hostile and un-attentive of their needs. They may find that they are unable to control their arousal in the way that other people might be able to. They will have to work a lot harder in seeing the good in others and themselves. This can distort their relationships with others throughout the rest of their lives. Living in a world that does not respect the psychological boundaries of the self will make this harder. A weaker identity makes it a lot easier to import superficial identities in order to survive. But all of these problems are surmountable.

The work that is required to reconnect all these fragmented parts of the self is a spiritual journey. It will feel at times like this broken down gene machine will not be able to fix itself, and this is true, to a large extent. But it can still communicate. And its communications with the outside world can constantly be improved. This is a spiritual journey because it comes from inside you and reveals itself through deep meditative practices as closer and closer approximations to the Truth. In order to start this journey you just have to believe that you and your life on this planet, this intricate matrix of genes and muscles and senses, inhabiting your body now at this time, is the perfect and utterly unique result of an ancestral lineage that stretches back to the first-ever humans. You are here because they survived. That increases your chances of surviving now, surely? 

Even if this history is not written down, which I believe it is most likely that it isn’t, it is still etched in the history of your genes for eternity. If you listen to their quiet insistent demand for survival and satisfy yourself that you understand them, you will find your own space in this world, and be able to meet the demands of both the outside and the inner worlds. You will find that you can grow into this space, despite the hostilities around you and within you. You will become re-attached to the planet, and the solar system, through every fiber of your being. And through every electro-chemical pathway the universe will be communicating with you and you will be communicating with it in the same way that your ancestors did. That is consciousness.

That is a consciousness that goes beyond the class consciousness of our current socio-economic circumstances. It is a consciousness that is at rest and at peace with the world; it is one that is able to satisfy its needs within its own ecological niche without further movement or unrest. Unfortunately, most of us have been born into a social system that is constantly churning through a chaotic riot of competing impulses that cannot satisfy themselves for more than a few seconds before being usurped by some other momentary force. Everything is a distraction. A being that witnesses the turmoil and tumultuous impulses of the world is a part of it but is free from it, is truly a spiritual being because they have transcended their physical being.

Cultural Practices

The relationship between spirituality and religion is the same as the relationship between our inherited impulses and our sociological constructions. Religion involves the habitual reinforcement of successful practices within a self-defined membership of the population; and I mean the practices are ‘successful’ in the sense that they have survived, historically, for whatever reason, in whatever format: socio-economic, politico-ideological or philosophical-transcendental. What interests me here is that, religious practices are defined by their accumulation and redistribution of capital via the co-construction, and habitual reinforcement, of culturally embedded narratives and identities. They are the fundamental glue that holds mankind together. But in saying this, it is important to recognise that some cultural practices do not survive, and that there must continue to be variations in all cultural practices in order for important adaptations to take root; so that, when the time comes, the adaptations will enable the proliferation of a culture’s traditions to the next generation, albeit in a slightly altered format. Thus, within all cultural practices, there is a dialectical antagonism between stasis and change which defines the internal political struggles of the discourses in their day.

Cultural practices are not simply synonymous with the philosophical-transcendental world religions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, or the politico-ideological traditions of Marxism, Maoism, Feudalism, Republicanism, or the socio-economic practices of Neo-Liberal Conservatism, Utopian Socialism, etc. No, cultural practices are synonymous with all these and more. They arise in any group of people where a shared language is used to communicate the positions of the members to construct a ‘meaning’ in their minds that is greater than any individual one of them. The sharing of a language is, in and of itself, a quasi-religious cultural practice. There is a habitual reinforcement of successful communications; there are the accumulation and redistribution of meaning; along with a constant variation in forms, that enables adaptations in the language to take place, in response to changes in the members’ circumstances. Thus, within a language, as within all cultural practices, there is a dialectical antagonism between stasis and change which defines the internal political struggles of the discourses in their day.

Permanent Revolution

In a social system where Identity Capital determines the production of ideas, there is a good chance that some Identities will permeate through the legislative and executive bodies of the State to have a greater impact on the creation and maintenance of a cultural ideology than other Identities. Thus, in the UK, the Symbolic Monarchy is able to directly impact on the formation of a cultural ideology through and within the State infrastructure. In opposition to this has arisen a Popular Culture where Identity Capital is of much lower economic value but of more effective power through its replication across individuals. Inevitably this leads to a state of what one might refer to as a Permanent Revolution, whereby ideologies compete for power within a stable State. I believe that this is what Trotsky was referring to when he described:

“a revolution which makes no compromise with any single form of class rule, which does not stop at the democratic stage, which goes over to socialist measures and to war against reaction from without; that is, a revolution whose every successive stage is rooted in the preceding one and which can end only in the complete liquidation of class society.”  

At the time he wrote this, the Soviets were seeking to change the internal structural relations of Russian society. However, they were constantly defeated by the need to reorganise within the existing international trade relationships. The first stage of the Russian Revolution had been the creation of a proto-Democracy through the International Working Class Movement. Within this formative system, competing Ideologies could vie for representational power, and the replication of their particular brand of Identity Capital, across the membership. As within all such systems of Democracy this gave way to a series of dialectics: as each majority stigmatises its minorities, the minorities form (armed and/or unarmed) Militia to fight against the hostile majority; the minorities then go on to unify their allies against a real or perceived Common Enemy, thus becoming the majority, through a coalition of the willing, stigmatising a new set of minorities.

Thus, across 1930s Europe the Common Enemy of the International Working Class Movement began as Imperialism and Feudalism. However, in Germany, Judaism became the Common Enemy of the populist National Socialist (Nazi) Party; whilst in Russia, American Capitalism eventually became the Common Enemy of the United Socialist Soviet Republic. In all cases, the spread of Democracy was accompanied by: a) progression towards more universal suffrage; b) made possible by new and cheaper modes of mass communication; and c) a constant dialectical process of conflicting identities and ideologies. This process is what Trotsky was referring to as a Permanent Revolution which he saw as the future of the International Working Class Movement. Trotsky was warning the IWCM against any Minority Interest Group seizing absolute power within the Democracy that might put this process in jeopardy. Unfortunately for Trotsky, this is what happened when Stalin seized power, possibly sowing the seeds for the demise of the Soviet Union during the 1980’s.     

Hegelian Dialectics does not require a Democracy for its realisation it only requires the evolution of thought, not society itself. However, it is probably just as true that when the economic relations of production, within a society, become organised around Identity Capital, Class structures increasingly become subordinated to the needs and demands of individuals who operate as registered professionals. This professionalisation of the class system requires the production and redistribution of an individual’s wealth in the form of a codification and commodification of their knowledge, skills and experience. In much the same way, in the history of European economies the Guilds, Trade Unions, and arguably the Freemasons formed themselves into a series of Minority Interest Groups that sought to unify and accumulate their Identity Capital, for the benefit of all within a relatively hostile market, through the self-regulation and protection of their (sub-)cultural practices. It now seems inevitable that this organising of an economy around Identity Capital will eventually lead to the growth of a ‘Middle-class’ that drags increasing amounts of its Upper and Lower classes into its Permanent Revolution. This process is equivalent to the professionalization of all occupational, sexual, and political Identities within a global Democracy.

Feminism

To illustrate this argument a little further, the history of the Feminist Movement in Western Europe during the period covered by the IWCM is interesting. I am not a woman, and for many Feminists this will mean that I have ‘no rights’ when it comes to my opinions on the Feminist Movement. Although I agree that I do not have any ‘voting rights’, I hope they will accept that within a Democracy I should still able to express an opinion. The Feminist Movement has, after all, been at the forefront of defining Identity Capital as part of our progress towards more universal suffrage. 

Within the Feminist Movement there are different Minority Interest Groups: Marxist, Radical, Libertarian, or Cultural, to name the few I have heard of. There is a clear dialectic in operation here between two ideologies: one, positioning women as members of a minority that comprises less than 50% of any political constituency; and the other, positioning women as members of a Class who represent about if not slightly more than 50% of a wider political Democracy. Women cannot be a minority and not a minority at the same time. The narrative that justifies the Feminist Movement is thus compromised, but this is a symptom rather than the disease. The real problem is that the ecomonic activity of women is not always monetized and their professional knowledge, skills and experience has not been, or cannot be, protected in the same sort of way that the syndicates represented by Guilds, Trade Unions and Freemasonary was. Thus, there are sectors of the economy where women represent more that 50% of the workforce, but these sectors in total represent far less than the required 50% of the wider workforce. According to reports, these sectors represent the Minority Interest Groups of carers, cleaners, cashiers, clerical workers and childrearers in the economy. These involve knowledge, skills and experience that are expected to be given 'free of charge' in the family home? They cannot be withdrawn from the Family in some form of industrial dispute because that would lead to the end of Family. The Family can 'buy-in' these skills but they are not thought to require any sort of formal training or qualifications or professional code of practice; and therefore the knowledge required for their operation is not available to be bought or sold?

Perhaps this is why it is only the sexual exploitation of women that is so often represented as a profession, even though sex workers are granted very little legal or financial protection under current legislation. Surely, this is how power works? Women have power, but it is constrained within the parameters of a Democracy. Unfortunately, an economy without power is not an economy, because all economies (at least as we have so far known them) are fundamentally about the exploitation of minorities within them, for financial, sexual or intellectual profit. What constrains women within an economy is the same thing that constrains the economy without. That is, the capacity to import and export commodities across international borders. And the definition of territorial boundaries - between Nation States or Family Homes - tends to be decided through the violence and aggression of male on male Minority Interest Groups.