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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226 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL and capacities, and a specific possession exerts therefore also a specific influence on the possessor. Actual possession involves a reciprocal interaction between the qualities of the possessor and those of the object possessed. This inter- action and mutual determination can be more or less close. The possession of objects which have a purely aesthetic significance or a highly specialized intellectual significance, or which can be obtained only with great difficulty, will in- volve a close interdependence. There will be a scale of ob- jects involving for their possession a decreasing interde- pendence, until the final stage is reached in the possession of money. The possession of money requires no specific qualities and leaves the possessor completely free and inde- pendent. This independence is manifest first of all in the acquisi- tion. The peculiar abstract character of money makes it possible for all forms of activity and all kinds of talent to lead to its acquisition. It does not require a special dex- terity, but can be obtained by dexterity in the handling of other objects. As all roads once led to Rome, so all eco- nomic roads now lead to money. But this independence is also manifest in the aspect of enjoyment. All other forms of possession demand specific qualities and characteristics on the part of the possessor. Money makes no such demands and places no such limi- tations. It therefore increases the liberty and the freedom of the individual, not only in the negative sense, but also in the positive sense. To possess an object means to be able to do with it what one wants, to be able to express one’s will in and through and with that object. We possess our body in so far as we express our will in and through and with our body, in so far as it obeys our will. We express our tend- encies and characteristics in our surroundings by means

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