The social Theory of Georg Simmel

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1024612627

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-166627

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Spykman, Nicholas J. http://d-nb.info/gnd/124229867

Title:: The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Place of publication:: Chicago

Publisher:: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Year of publication:: 1925

Scope:: XXIX, 297 S

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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188 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL type is the formation of a labor class. It has required a very high abstraction over and above all individual char- acteristics before this integration of individuals in a uni- tary class-conscious group could come about. Independ- ently of what the individual produces, whether guns or toys, the formal fact that he works for a wage is sufficient to make him a member of a group which includes all those who work under similar conditions. The identical relation to capital permits a differentiation of this similarity out of the different occupations and a combination and union of all those who participate in such a relation. The concept “workman” is the result of a logical proc- ess which has been in intimate interaction with the so- cio-historical process which created the wage-earner. The growth of large-scale industry placed thousands of workers in identical factual and personal situations. The complete penetration of the money economy through all social life depersonalized human service and reduced its significance to a monetary value. The increased demands for a higher standard of life brought about an increasing discrepancy between real wages and desired comfort. All these factors yielded on the one hand a special emphasis on wage work as such and the formation of the concept “workman,” while on the other hand they created the actual social con- ditions which enabled these workmen to combine. The term “workman’’ has not remained a mere logical concept; it has become a legal concept. The existence of workmen’s compensations and workmen’s insurance is indicative that the mere fact of being a workman gives an individual cer- tain legal rights. The correlate of the labor class and the result of the same differentiation is the class of manufacturers or entre- preneurs. As a logical concept, its formation synchronizes with that of the labor class. But, owing to specific reasons,

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