How to join the elite ?

Your quick handbook to social ascent.

Ascending the social ladder takes two legs : one is your culture, the other is your social capital.

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In last week’s publication, I stated that one can’t buy their way into the elite. Meaning that financial capital alone cannot provide access to the major spheres of power of a society.

The elite is the group of people in a society that holds an amount of power that is disproportionate to its relative size. While this power is partially based on financial capital, it is also widely fuelled by their sociocultural capital. What is sociocultural capital exactly ?

Cultural capital is the set of cultural resources and knowledge you possess. Social capital is the amount of resources that can be leverage through your personal networks. High cultural capital allows individuals to expand their networks, thus improving their social capital, and the combination of the two gives form to sociocultural capital.

Sociocultural capital comes with codes that allow members of the elite to tell who is one of them, and who isn’t. It is a prerequisite to social elevation. Those who have financial capital, but don’t know the codes are more or less openly labelled as parvenu, social climber, nouveau riche or upstart.

How sociocultural capital is measured

The mere number of words you use to express yourself is a stark indicator of your cultural capital. While the French language contains 60 to 100 thousand words, most speakers use only about 3 to 5 thousand of them. The lowest tier of speaker would use 500 to 1000 words, while the most knowledgeable would be closer to 10 thousand words.

It is for this reason that literature is closely tied to high sociocultural capital. So are the studies. Those who have studied for extensive periods of time usually have higher cultural capital. All the more as it is a perfect opportunity to build a network of connections, who will end up working in diverse industries and fields, bolstering social capital.

But you can actually quite easily reckon one’s sociocultural capital by taking a look at their activities. How people spend their free time is certainly the best indicator. For instance, observe how they travel, if they travel at all. Which type of housing they select, how they behave, which activities they pick... Feel free to browse the Activity map to observe how each activity or habit is generally tied to specific levels of financial and sociocultural capital.

The Activity Map

Side note : watching TV does not make you a worthless person, or a hillbilly. It simply is a habit that is mostly spread across those with low financial and low sociocultural capital.

How to increase one’s sociocultural capital ?