Full text : The social Theory of Georg Simmel

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the family merely undertook to execute its commands.
Customs and mores rather than subjective preference began
 to guide his acts and decisions, and from being the sole
lord of the family property he became its manager in the
interest of the whole. Thus the relationship between superiors
 and inferiors is placed on a new basis. The family
as a whole is thought of as standing above all the individual
 members, and the ruling patriarch himself has become
subordinate to its objective principle. He can command
the other members, but only in the name of that higher
ideal unity. This leads to a very interesting sociological
constellation, the subordination of the superior to the laws
which he gives himself.
The growth of an objective principle to which both the
superior and the inferior have to subject themselves finds
in modern times its fullest expression in the economic
world. The personal element has largely been withdrawn
from the relationship between employers and workmen.
It is no longer a relationship of personal service, but it has
become a sale of a certain amount of labor power. The
results of this modern development have been, on the one
hand, an objectivation of the actual relationship and, on
the other hand, the growth of a production technique
which sets objective norms and demands to which both
amployer and workmen are subject.
The subordination to an impersonal principle gives,
therefore, to the individuals concerned a peculiar double
relationship. The fact that as a group they are imbued
with a single spirit or subject to a single objective principle
gives them in their relations to outsiders a more or less
equal position. Within the group, on the other hand, they
stand to one another in different relationships of superiority
and inferiority. This double aspect of their formal sociological
 situation colors their whole social life. An employee
            
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