Drawing on a series of ethnographic cases, Isenhour suggests that contemporary links between status and consumption are rooted in a Western conceptualization of the economy as a separate realm, governed by rules independent of social priorities and normative structures. She argues that our efforts to “bend the curve” toward more sustainable forms depend on reimagining economic systems as a means toward the fulfillment of social priorities.

Status consumption is a major threat to environmental sustainability. In this volume, anthropologists and archaeologists explore the implications of status consumption for environmental sustainability across time and space as well as how the current destructive arc might be bent.

This chapter uses ethnohistorical information on prehispanic Andean kingdoms to illuminate how semiotic and material aspects of political economy are intertwined in premodern and modern approaches to various kinds of signs of social status. It argues that both anthropologists and mainstream economists tend to focus on semiotic aspects of human societies while largely ignoring their material conditions and repercussions, which are fundamental to grasping the role of identity and consumption in aggravating global inequalities and unsustainability.

Evidence of status competition in the US Southwest is subtle and often devoid of material excess, pushing archaeologists to challenge the ways in which they think about and search for social differences. Using data from the large Mimbres site of Galaz, we focus on the concept of antecedence, a form of social status derived from being viewed as a first-comer or the descendant of first-comers. Our results suggest that while archaeology can offer insights into status and consumption in the ancient past, broadening our views of what is possible, we must be cautious in applying those insights directly to the contemporary world.