Green Against Greed: Negating Economic Capital Through Ecological Distinction

Pro-environmental attitudes are more prevalent among the affluent and educated, both across and within societies. However, the underpinnings of this pattern remain debated. Some scholars view environmental engagement as a politics of prosperity, emerging among groups whose material needs are sufficiently met to prioritize non-material concerns. Others interpret ecological commitment as a form of symbolic distinction, reinforcing social hierarchies. A third line of research suggests that a new ecological habitus has developed among high-cultural-capital groups. Building on a detailed mapping of environmental attitudes across social space, I advance an alternative interpretation. Against the prosperity hypothesis, I show that it is not the materially wealthiest who are most pro-environmental, but rather those rich in cultural capital. Nuancing the ecological distinction thesis, I argue that pro-green commitments among these groups reflect not only downward status signalling but also symbolic opposition to economic capital within the dominant class. And contrary to the claim of an ecological habitus, I find that ecological commitments among the culturally privileged are more selective and inconsistent than a genuinely transformed habitus would imply. Instead, I propose that pro-environmental views among those rich in cultural capital express a broader symbolic rejection of the money, wealth, and materialism associated with economic capital. This interpretation is reinforced by the close alignment between pro-environmental attitudes and anti-materialist cultural tastes-a pattern that explains much of the observed association between cultural capital and green position-takings.