Taste functioned as a nonmonetary barrier preserving innovations within communities.

Evidence

Yet in the past we did rely on stauncher notions of taste to encourage the very radical innovations idolized today. Taste was a powerful signaling cost—a nonmonetary way to keep certain styles and artifacts within the confines of certain communities. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 775

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Authenticity functions as an exclusions tool guarding cultural production — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 273; Rejecting taste weakens cultural capital and elevates raw wealth as status. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 775; Industry-trained taste becomes involuntary habit mistaken for natural spontaneity (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Astute taste in others excludes what creativity requires #expands (0.95) — Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family, 1332
• Industry-trained taste becomes involuntary habit mistaken for natural spontaneity #qualifies (0.70)