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Free to Those Who Can Afford It: A Research Agenda for the Everyday Affordance of Privilege Noah McClain Ph. D. Candidate Department of Sociology New York University noah.mcclain@ Ashley Mears Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Boston University mears.ashley@ Draft April 2011 Do Not Cite ABSTRACT In recent decades, the study of stratification has expanded in focus from poverty to its counter position of privilege, conceived of as an institutionalized package of economic, social and cultural advantages.? In this paper, we argue that zero-priced material goods, known as ‘free stuff,’ comprise the unacknowledged glue holding this institutionalized set of passes in place in everyday life.? Free stuff, from corporate perks to meal accoutrements and easy access to wifi and bathrooms, resembles a non-market transaction, therefore rendering it largely invisible to both consumers and scholars. We contend that free stuff is central to the economy and stratification hierarchies within it. We position freebies within theories of gift exchange and agree that there is ‘no such thing as a free lunch,’ since zero-priced products are embedded in systems of exchange. However such exchanges enact a higher toll for the poor and the working classes than for professionals and elites.? Free stuff does important work; it eases social interaction and adds value to unrewarding labor arrangements, an argument we develop with evidence from three cases of recipients of ‘freebies:’ the professional, the culture industry promoter, and the poor urban dweller.? Through comparison of each of these cases, we build an argument that freebies and perks are affordances of class position, whether in their abundance in the case of the professional’s ease with perks or in their absence in the case of the pauper’s subsistence.? We conclude by putting forward a theory of free stuff and inequality: the higher-up recipients are on the class hierarchy, the more invisible are the cost