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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MONEY AND INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY 221 I m n yt 1m e ‘Ly of J (Y= e a xe ly as ts A. {1- ve Ne Je n= he rh ly X~- to he :ds ar- Ee The significance of the money economy for modern civ- ilization becomes more apparent if we view the resulting liberation in connection with the resulting restraints. It creates, namely, a specific form of impersonal mutual de- pendence which allows full scope to personal independ- ence. During the period of the natural economy, a person depended on a small number of individuals, but his de- pendence was a dependence on personal services. The complicated technique which could develop after the in- troduction of the money economy makes a single person dependent on countless individuals, but these individuals have a significance for the subject only as bearers of an economic function, as possessors of capital, producers of goods, retailers or merchants. What they are outside of their economic function is of no concern. The totality of their personality remains outside of the economic rela- tionships. The tendency of modern economic life which results from the division of labor is to make a person de- pendent on an increasing number of individuals, but to free him more and more from the personalities behind their functions. The small circle on which a person was dependent in a natural economy was a personal circle. The large circle on which a person is dependent in the modern economy is not a personal circle, but a circle of objective economic functions. He depends on more people, but much less on a specific individual. Because he is dependent on the func- tion and not on the bearer of the function, he can change and select the latter according to his own choice. This gives him an inner independence, a feeling of individual self-suf- ficiency. His freedom consists in his ability to change the individuals on whom he shall depend. Not dependence as such is the opposite of freedom, but dependence on specific

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