The Comparative Regime: How Pseudo‐Objective Standards Constitute Desire

ABSTRACT

Social comparison theory holds that people compare themselves with others when objective standards of self‐evaluation are unavailable. Contemporary societies supply measurement on an unprecedented scale, yet comparison has not receded. This article argues that many metrics in digital life function as pseudo‐objective standards: socially relative assessments presented as independent requirements of achievement or adequacy. It develops two contributions. First, the comparative regime names a configuration linking commensuration, algorithmic selection and commercial demand generation through personalised, recurrent feedback. Comparison participates in constituting desire by arranging what appears worth wanting before deliberation begins. Its distinctiveness lies in this configuration. Second, the criterion of comparative capture identifies when such feedback undermines reflective authority: it supplies a want, keeps its standard of adequacy moving, and obstructs examination or refusal of either. These conditions must operate together; an upstream origin alone does not establish pathology. The article locates the regime historically and institutionally, explains its economic persistence and the agency that remains within it, and derives testable implications. Non‐comparative selfhood names the reflective authority needed to examine desires, protect non‐positional goods and bring comparison to an end.