Philosophy of Money _Georg Simmel

Philosophy of Money _Georg Simmel
Format PDF 3.03 MB
Pages 616

Acknowledgements xii

Note on the Translation xiii

Preface to the Third Edition xiv

Preface to the Second Edition xlvi

Introduction to the Translation 1

THE PHILOSOPHY OF MONEY

Preface 51

ANALYTICAL PART

Chapter 1 Value and Money 56

I 56

Reality and value as mutually independent categories

through which our conceptions become images of the world 56

The psychological fact of objective value 59

Objectivity in practice as standardization or as a

guarantee for the totality of subjective values 61

Economic value as the objectification of subjective

values, as a result of establishing distance between the

consuming subject and the object 62

An analogy with aesthetic value 70

Economic activity establishes distances and overcomes them 72

II 76

Exchange as a means of overcoming the purely subjective

value significance of an object 76

In exchange, objects express their value reciprocally 77

The value of an object becomes objectified by

exchanging it for another object 79

Exchange as a form of life and as the condition of

economic value, as a primary economic fact 79

Analysis of the theories of utility and scarcity 88

Value and price: the socially fixed price as a preliminary

stage of the objectively regulated price 92

III 99

Incorporation of economic value and a relativistic world view 99

The epistemology of a relativistic world view 100

The construction of proofs in infinite series and their reciprocal legitimation 102

The objectivity of truth as well as of value viewed as a

relation between subjective elements 106

Money as the autonomous manifestation of the exchange

relation which transforms desired objects into economic

objects, and establishes the substitutability of objects 117

Analysis of the nature of money with reference to its

value stability, its development and its objectivity 120

Money as a reification of the general form of existence

according to which things derive their significance from

their relationship to each other 127

Chapter 2 The Value of Money as a Substance 129

I 129

The intrinsic value of money and the measurement of value 129

Problems of measurement 131

The quantity of effective money 135

Does money possess an intrinsic value? 140

The development of the purely symbolic character of money 144

II 150

Renunciation of the non-monetary uses of monetary material 150

The first argument against money as merely a symbol:

the relations of money and goods, which would make an

intrinsic value for money superfluous, are not accurately

determinable; intrinsic value remedies this deficiency 154

The second argument against money as merely a symbol:

the unlimited augmentability of monetary symbols;

relativistic indifference to the absolute limits of monetary

quantity and the errors to which this indifference leads 158

The supply of money 160

The reciprocal nature of the limitation that reality places

on pure concepts 163

III 167

The historical development of money from substance to function 167

Social interactions and their crystallization into separate

structures; the common relations of buyer and seller to

the social unit as the sociological premise of monetary intercourse 169

Monetary policy: largeness and smallness, diffuseness

and concentration of the economic circle in their

significance for the intrinsic character of money 171

Social interaction and exchange relations: money’s

functions: its facilitation of trade, its constancy as a

measure of value, its mobilization and condensation of values 173

The nature of the economic circle and its significance for money 179

The transition to money’s general functional character 183

The declining significance of money as substance 190

The increasing significance of money as value 198

Chapter 3 Money in the Sequence of Purposes 204

I 204

Action towards an end as the conscious interaction

between subject and object 204

The varying length of teleological series 207

The tool as intensified means 209

Money as the purest example of the tool 210

The unlimited possibilities for the utilization of money 212

The unearned increment of wealth 217

The difference between the same amount of money as

part of a large and of a small fortune 219

Money—because of its character as pure means—as

peculiarly congruent with personality types that are not

closely united with social groups 221

II 228

The psychological growth of means into ends 228

Money as the most extreme example of a means becoming an end 232

Money as an end depends upon the cultural tendencies of an epoch 233

Psychological consequences of money’s teleological position 235

Greed and avarice 239

Extravagance 248

Ascetic poverty 252

Cynicism 256

The blasé attitude 257

III 259

The quantity of money as its quality 260

Subjective differences in amounts of risk 261

The qualitatively different consequences of quantitatively altered causes 263

The threshold of economic awareness 265

Differential sensitivity towards economic stimuli 267

Relations between external stimuli and emotional

responses in the field of money 270

Significance of the personal unity of the owner 272

The material and cultural relation of form and amount 274

The relation between quantity and quality of things, and

the significance of money for this relation 278

SYNTHETIC PART

Chapter 4 Individual Freedom 283

I 283

Freedom exists in conjunction with duties 283

The gradations of this freedom depend on whether the

duties are directly personal or apply only to the products of labour 284

Money payment as the form most congruent with personal freedom 285

The maximization of value through changes in ownership 292

Cultural development increases the number of persons

on whom one is dependent and the simultaneous

decrease in ties to persons viewed as individuals 295

Money is responsible for impersonal relations between

people, and thus for individual freedom 298

II 304

Possession as activity 304

The mutual dependence of having and being 307

The dissolving of this dependency by the possession of money 308

Lack of freedom as the interweaving of the mental series:

this lack at a minimum when the interweaving of either

is with the most general of the other series 313

Its application to limitations deriving from economic interests 315

Freedom as the articulation of the self in the medium of

things, that is, freedom as possession 322

The possession of money and the self 327

III 332

Differentiation of person and possession 332

Spatial separation and technical objectification through money 334

The separation of the total personality from individual

work activities and the results of this separation for the

evaluation of these work activities 336

The development of the individual’s independence from the grou 343

New forms of association brought about by money; the

association planned for a purpose 345

General relations between a money economy and the

principle of individualism 348

Chapter 5 The Money Equivalent of Personal Values 357

I 357

Wergild 357

The transition from the utilitarian to the objective and

absolute valuation of the human being 359

Punishment by fine and the stages of culture 365

The increasing inadequacy of money 368

Marriage by purchase 372

Marriage by purchase and the value of women 374

Division of labour among the sexes, and the dowry 376

The typical relation between money and prostitution, its

development analogous to that of wergild 378

Marriage for money 383

Bribery 387

Money and the ideal of distinction 392

II 397

The transformation of specific rights into monetary claims 397

The enforceability of demands 400

The transformation of substantive values into money values 402

The negative meaning of freedom and the extirpation of the personality 403

The difference in value between personal achievement

and monetary equivalent 407

III 412

‘Labour money’ and its rationale 412

The unpaid contribution of mental effort 414

Differences in types of labour as quantitative differences 417

Manual labour as the unit of labour 421

The value of physical activity reducible to that of mental activity 424

Differences in the utility of labour as arguments against

‘labour money’: the insight into the significance of money thereby afforded 429

Chapter 6 The Style of Life 433

I 433

The preponderance of intellectual over emotional

functions brought about by the money economy 433

Lack of character and objectivity of the style of life 436

The dual roles of both intellect and money: with regard

to content they are supra-personal 438

The dual roles of intellect and money: with regard to

function they are individualistic and egoistic 441

Money’s relationship to the rationalism of law and logic 446

The calculating character of modern times 448

II 450

The concept of culture 450

The increase in material culture and the lag in individual culture 453

The objectification of the mind 457

The division of labour as the cause of the divergence of

subjective and objective culture 458

The occasional greater weight of subjective culture 468

The relation of money to the agents of these opposing tendencies 473

III 476

Alterations in the distance between the self and objects

as the manifestation of varying styles of life 476

Modern tendencies towards the increase and diminution of this distance 479

The part played by money in this dual process 482

Credit 484

The pre-eminence of technology 486

The rhythm or symmetry, and its opposite, of the contents of life 491

The sequence and simultaneity of rhythm and symmetry 494

Analogous developments in money 497

The pace of life, its alterations and those of the money supply 504

The concentration of monetary activity 509

The mobilization of values 511

Constancy and flux as categories for comprehending the

world, their synthesis in the relative character of existence 515

Money as the historical symbol of the relative character of existence 517

Afterword: The Constitution of the Text 519

Name Index 540