The Political Economy of Norms
Normative propositions articulated by authorities (i.e., any person claiming such status by virtue of prescribing an action), if they can be used to justify acquisition of either material, status, or liberty, will increase in demand in proportion to the social status of the authority, and the quantity of goods that can be attained thereby, and decrease in demand in proportion to the ignominy or weakness of the authority, or the tangible negative consequences of acting upon them, or the loss of return on action. By endorsing a given norm, an authority may easily find themselves victims of its acquisitive prescriptions, if the norm can be interpreted to justify it.
Return on action is itself driven by asymmetry of power created by popularity, willpower, the coordinating effect of authority, and the degree of asymmetry of goods in the initial state. Once the object resource of acquisition is exhausted, the norm becomes either inverted, or neutralised through ritual sublimation, and divested of its material consequences.
Which is why the French still salute the tricolour, but don’t cut off heads anymore.