The social Theory of Georg Simmel

Bibliographic data

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 THE STYLE OF MODERN LIFE 235 - re = n- ts e, th S- - st £S Pe or he ast im m 1c- 1d, v= on the ich nd le- ble ant nd the ac- ich ty Oar- sonal ends by impersonal means. In its functional aspect it has become the basis of economic individualism and the grossest egoism. Because it has no character of its own, but adapts itself to any purpose, it allows the individual who makes use of it the expression of his full individual peculiarity. The case of intelligence is not different. Knowledge of the actuality in its factual aspect is imper- sonal, open to all, but it can be used for the expression and the full realization of individual differences and for the sat- isfaction of the egoistic impulse. Both money and intellect are indifferent to the indi- vidual peculiarities of life’s contents. But because they give form and direction to these contents to which they are in principle indifferent, they create the contradictions of practical life. Because of the formal equality of their re- lationships to all contents, they become a means for the realization of the grossest factual inequalities. There is another characteristic of modern life which is also closely related to both rationalism and the money economy. That is the tendency of man to deal with his world in terms of arithmetically defined magnitudes. Mod- ern man is above all else a mathematician, a statistician, and an accountant. His theoretical world is to be under- stood in terms of mathematical formulae. His practical world is to be weighed and measured in terms of quantities of pleasure and pain. His political world is to be run on the basis of counting votes. This whole tendency is in intimate causal relation with our economic world. The money economy has made our daily life a series of mathematical operations. Most of our acts involve monetary considerations, and their values are to be calculated with minute precision and compared in their minute details. It is the money economy which has given us a practical world which is to be dealt with by

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