"If that happened, Kal-El would have to answer to me in turn." It isn't a choice for Kal-El to question, even if he would.

"A person of status isn't necessarily the same as someone of importance," he explains. "Kryptonian society, its social classes, were heavily regimented." Each guild bearing its own different level of importance to society as a whole and what status was ascribed to its members and each house- particularly the oldest ones, such as his own- beqeathing some kind of social standing to its members.