188 THE SOCIAL THEORY OF GEORG SIMMEL 
type is the formation of a labor class. It has required a 
very high abstraction over and above all individual char- 
acteristics before this integration of individuals in a uni- 
tary class-conscious group could come about. Independ- 
ently of what the individual produces, whether guns or 
toys, the formal fact that he works for a wage is sufficient 
to make him a member of a group which includes all those 
who work under similar conditions. The identical relation 
to capital permits a differentiation of this similarity out of 
the different occupations and a combination and union of 
all those who participate in such a relation. 
The concept “workman” is the result of a logical proc- 
ess which has been in intimate interaction with the so- 
cio-historical process which created the wage-earner. The 
growth of large-scale industry placed thousands of workers 
in identical factual and personal situations. The complete 
penetration of the money economy through all social life 
depersonalized human service and reduced its significance 
to a monetary value. The increased demands for a higher 
standard of life brought about an increasing discrepancy 
between real wages and desired comfort. All these factors 
yielded on the one hand a special emphasis on wage work 
as such and the formation of the concept “workman,” 
while on the other hand they created the actual social con- 
ditions which enabled these workmen to combine. The 
term “workman’’ has not remained a mere logical concept; 
it has become a legal concept. The existence of workmen’s 
compensations and workmen’s insurance is indicative that 
the mere fact of being a workman gives an individual cer- 
tain legal rights. 
The correlate of the labor class and the result of the 
same differentiation is the class of manufacturers or entre- 
preneurs. As a logical concept, its formation synchronizes 
with that of the labor class. But, owing to specific reasons,