There is a conception of identity that grows up and takes hold in liberal society, if only because we can think about ourselves and our actions only by reference to what we are. As always, we define our identity by reference to the common goods the community recognizes. If I say I am American the claim is insignificant unless Americans are united by something they recognize collectively as good. In liberal society, however, the only thing recognized in common as a substantive good is the goal implicit in all individual desire, the ability to get what one wants. That ability is most readily recognized in the form of money, power and success, so liberalism turns society into an assortment of individuals related by such things. A liberal world is thus one in which the authoritative social reality, the thing by reference to which we are what we are, is a hierarchy of money, power and influence that excludes all substantive values and so is strictly quantitative. We are allowed public recognition only as employees and consumers, as nodes in a universal network of production and consumption, individuated and ranked by organizational charts, bank balances, and consumption choices. Under such conditions we lose substantive connection to others. Social and personal identity become purely hierarchical or quantitative, and self-realization becomes equivalent to pursuit of financial and hierarchical superiority and conspicuous consumption of one sort or another. Everything else becomes a personal idiosyncrasy of no public or objective importance.