Symbol

A symbol is a property in economies of misery that allows someone to claim belonging to a given group, namely by acknowledging and validating the authenticity of their identity as a member, or as a bearer of at least some of the features that define it.

Symbols are administered by a symbolic system and act as a way to modulate control without displacing actual value away from those who accumulate it.

A symbol can be positive or negative: when positive, it assigns a mesodominant position within the power system. When negative, it assigns a suppressed position within the system. A third possibility is to have been denied both of these symbols, in which case one is fully displaced in it.