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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THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE GROUP 201 system there developed a similar increase in individual differentiation and enlargement of social contacts. The serf, bound in a narrow circle, was partly owner of his own land, partly laborer on the lord’s demesne. The decline of the system brought a sharp differentiation between in- dividuals who were entirely owners and those who were entirely laborers. But both groups obtained contacts with wider social circles. The laborers enlarged their social con- tacts by working for different employers; the owners en- larged their social contacts by their increased commercial activity. A similar observation may be made for all periods of social history. Among primitive tribes, the Individuals show marked similarity and are strongly united in small social groups. The groups as a whole are dissimilar and antagonistic. The stronger the synthesis within the group, the stronger the antithesis to other groups. The growth of culture brought on the one hand a differentiation within the group, and on the other hand an approach to other groups. Among civilized peoples, the uneducated masses show less individual differences than the more educated classes, but the masses in different nations seem more un- like than the more highly educated classes. The medieval corporation fully absorbed the individual, but the corpora- tions remained clearly distinct and separate. The modern association touches the individual only in certain aspects of his personality and leaves scope for wide individual differ- ences, but the associations themselves are integrated in one wide, all-inclusive unity, which is manifest in the uni- formity of legal norms, the universal penetration of the money economy, the mutual dependence through the divi- sion of labor, and the common interest in the national sconomy. This lack of differentiation among the elements of small

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