The Philosophy of Money
Language: English
Pages: 592
ISBN: 0415046416
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The complete translation of Simmel's classic work in which he provides us with a dazzling and wide-ranging discussion of the social, psychological and philosophical aspects of the money economy.
totality of desired and available objects. This scheme of the private economy of an individual is obviously not only an analogy of the general economy; its general application determines the average prices. The continuous subjective balancing precipitates the objective relation between commodity and price; this relationship depends not only upon the proportion between the total effective supply of goods and the total amount of money, but also – subject to all kinds of modifications – on the
the case of practical value, the external must only be freed from its rigidity, isolation and opposition to the internal in order for it to form the simplest expression and unit of measure for higher ‘intellectual’ things. This reduction may or may not be successful. Yet its assertion is at least compatible, in principle, with methodological demands and the fundamental composition of value. Differences in the utility of labour as arguments against ‘labour money’ These comments not only
they were very insecure – that in so doing the loyalty of the citizen as an owner of annuities to the king and his interest in saving him would thereby be greatly strengthened. It is significant that the term ‘partisan’ originally referred to a money-lender who was party to a loan to the Crown, while later, owing to the solidarity of interests between such bankers and the minister of finance under Mazarin and Fouquet, the term acquired the meaning of an ‘unconditional supporter’ and it has
oneself’.159 The world of almost infinite possibilities is the world without human decisions, or praxis. All this is to suggest that in The Philosophy of Money and elsewhere ‘Simmel not only consciously concerned himself with art but also transposed its specific structural qualities onto social phenomena’.160 This far-reaching aestheticism is an essential element of Simmel’s methodology and of his tragic world view. We find his ability to illuminate aspects of the social totality through an
things, which seems intangible to our cognition but none the less establishes its coherence, becomes practical and vital for us. The intentions and methods referred to here could not lay claim to any justification in principle if they were not able to serve a substantive diversity of basic philosophical convictions. It is possible to relate the details and superficialities of life to its most profound and essential movements, and their interpretation in accordance with the total meaning of life