Positional Goods (AIM Integration)

Canonical definition

Positional Goods are the population-scale aggregate of Positional Objects: market-transacted or socially-distributed Objects whose value to any Individual depends primarily on relative scarcity and social comparison rather than on A-function or I-enablement, such that their value falls as more Individuals possess them. Within AIM, the zero-sum and non-satiable character of Positional Goods is not constituted at the level of the good-within-a-population but is inherited, by replication across Subjects who share Models, from the dyadic exclusivity defined under Positional Object (the canonical, constitutive entry, see there). The term "Positional Good" is retained for continuity with the economics literature (Hirsch 1976; Frank) and should be used in economic discussion; in all such uses the capitalised term routes to Positional Object for its architectural grounding. AIM's contribution over the inherited concept is twofold: it dissolves the unstable "positional vs non-positional good" dichotomy by relocating positionality from the Object's kind to the valuation relation, and it explains the migration of Objects into and out of positional status that the population-level definition cannot represent.