Honor as Property in Dostoevsky’s Russia
I’ve been on a quest for the past couple years to read through the works of Dostoevsky, so I’ve found myself fallen into the trap too many 22-year-old guys without a girlfriend frequently get trapped in: I’m fairly certain anything in this world can be connected back to this old Russian man. Naturally, some things are more directly connected than others, and any time norms are discussed, it is impossible not to think to the rigidity of Russian social hierarchy and the pressure-cooking intensity of social norms which make Dostoevsky books so fascinating. As a thought experiment, I will describe a plot point from Demons (1872) in the context of property rights, social norms, transaction costs, and a supply-demand chart.
Firstly, let’s go over some context. I will try and keep it as tight as possible while still providing a cohesive narrative. Nikolai Stragovin, a member of Russian high society and son of the town matriarch Varvara Petrovna is a loose cannon. A handful of years ago, before his disappearance to Switzerland, in a bizarre display of cruelty, grasped the nose of one Pavel Pavlovich Gaganov, and dragged him across the floor of a social club, all the while laughing hysterically. After the event, Nikolai came to his senses and apologized to Pavel, and Pavel, whether it be out of his heart, or in response to social pressures, forgave Nikolai for his humiliation ritual. Pavel’s son, Artemy Gaganov however, did not forgive Nikolai. In fact, during Nikolai’s years of absence in Switzerland, Artemy Gaganov’s anger remained constantly simmering, awaiting the day of Nikolai’s return so he could confront him and regain his familial honor. So, after some years pass, and Nikolai returns to Russia, Artemy sends Nikolai a cruel note, forcing his hand into accepting a duel. Once Nikolai accepts the duel, Artemy stipulates the rules of engagement, declaring they are to face off until each man has fired three shots, or one of them falls dead, essentially declaring this duel a fight to the death. As the duel begins, Gaganov’s hands shake with rage, and this causes him to miss his first shot. In response, Nikolai calmly raises his arm and fires a return shot above Gaganov’s head. Nikolai’s nonchalance at the social severity of the engagement enrages Gaganov more, as he sees Nikolai’s unwillingness to kill him further disgrace to his family. The next two rounds play out as round one did, and the duel ends with Gaganov deeply humiliated, returning home a laughingstock, and Nikolai a stoic hero.
In Russian society in the mid 1800’s, honor is of the utmost importance. The norms of society have valued this commodity so highly, that it surpasses material capital as the primary class determiner. The value of honor is practically vital in the way that members of society will talk to (or ignore) other members based on their quantity of honor. Furthermore, the emphasis on honor in social norms has raised the emotional bar equally high, where Gaganov’s hands shake with such rage he cannot hit his mark in a life-or-death situation. Which came first, practicality or emotion is not important, but what is important is that they feed off each other to the point where this norm is deeply and emphatically engrained in society.
Due to the crowning of honor as the primary mover of social capital in mid 1800’s Russia, I would like to analyze honor as property, and the protection of honor as the establishment and maintenance of property rights.
Once we established honor as property and because honor is not regulated by any state institutions but is rather traded exclusively in the private sector, thus we can use the MPB-MPC graph to analyze it. Due to the extreme value of honor in Russian civil society, it can be understood that the equilibrium between the marginal cost of maintaining and establishing property rights and the marginal benefit of honor should be very North and East on the graph. The question then becomes, to what degree is it worth it to protect and establish honor in mid 19th century Russian society compared to the transaction costs.
If we think back to the example piled from Demons, we can see that Gaganov was willing to pay some extremely high costs for the protection of his honor. In fact, Gaganov was willing to kill or be killed by Nikolai to protect his honor. It is more difficult to say the individual rationality of Nikolai, as he is written stoically to a point where a reader should probably suspect ulterior motives of his actions. He could be someone who is resistant to norms, but more likely (this is the actual answer in the book) there is an information asymmetry. This gives us a solid example of adverse selection, where Nikolai knows relevant information to the second party (Nikolai is part of a liberal secret society who seek to reap benefit from the town through social engineering), and it is costly for Nikolai to share the information to Gaganov as it is in Nikolai’s secret society’s best interest for the duel to be carried out. Thus, Gaganov is under the impression that the duel is over honor, but Nikolai knows that there are also ideological stakes at risk.
All that aside, Nikolai was willing to die for the protection of his honor, and in fact might have even maximized his honor utility gain by showing mercy to the raging Gaganov in their duel. If both people in the example are willing to die to protect their honor, it would follow that the marginal benefit curve of honor is so shallow, that there will never be a point where the marginal cost of protecting honor will catch up. For this reason, while most societies will reach an equilibrium, there is no point where the transaction costs for protecting honor will exceed the benefit of establishing and maintaining honor property rights in 19th century Russia.
It is better to die than to be shamed.