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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222 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL persons, and if liberty means freedom from others, it has to begin with freedom from specific others. The money economy shows this same tendency through- out the economic system. It is manifest, not only in the relationships between man and his fellow-man, but also in the relationships between man and economic goods, and finally in the relationships between man and money itself. Man has become less dependent on individual persons, but more dependent on his group and its objective functions. The large increase in goods and in the number of goods and their decreasing marginal utility have reduced the value of the single object and sometimes even made it worthless. But not only does the whole species of such objects retain its value, but with advancing civilization man becomes more dependent on objects and dependent on more objects. A single pin is practically without value, but modern life could not be carried on without pins. The cheapening of money has made the single quantum less valuable, but the function of money as such becomes increasingly important and inclusive. In all these phenomena within the economic world, the single elements, in their singularity and individ- uality, lose their specific significance and become inter- changeable, while the factual functions which their species fulfil become increasingly important and make man in- creasingly dependent. This development of economic life is but a parallel of the development of mental life. In its original form it lacks a sharp distinction between the personal and the factual aspect and shows no clear differentiation between the subjective and the objective side. It is only later that the contents of life—property, labor, duty, knowledge, social position, or religion—become differentiated from the psy- chological experience and are conceived as having a self- sufficient, independent existence, be it actual or conceptual.

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