Journal of Classical Sociology

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Classical Sociology
The Sociology of the Sociology of Money : Simmel and the Contemporary

Battle of the Classics
Mathieu Deflem
Journal of Classical Sociology 2003 3: 67
DOI: 10.1177/1468795X03003001695
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Journal of Classical Sociology
Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi Vol 3(1): 67–96 [1468–795X(200303)3:1;67–96;031695]
www.sagepublications.com
The Sociology of the Sociology of Money

Simmel and the Contemporary Battle of the Classics
MATHIEU DEFLEM University of South Carolina
ABSTRACT I offer a discussion of Simmel’s Philosophy of Money in comparison

with the analyses of money in the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. Based
on this analysis, I argue that Simmel’s ambiguous status as a classic can be
accounted for by some of the characteristics of his approach as well as the
historical (non-)reception of his work. Simmel’s relative neglect in sociology for
the better part of the century as well as his recent revival with the rise of the new
cultural studies and the postmodern paradigm shift hint at an important interde-
pendence between the history and systematics of sociological theory. The theme
of money has not managed to be accepted as an undisputed topic of sociological
reflection because of its non-independent status in most social theories (apart
from Simmel’s) as well as the factual resistance to totalizing accounts (like
Simmel’s) in the history of sociology. Recent transformations in social theory,
however, indicate that money may, and to some extent already has, become a
more autonomous topic of inquiry. In conclusion, I argue that Simmel’s work
does lend itself to be taken up in postmodern perspectives and that the socio-
logical study of money can likewise be appropriated by the new cultural studies.
However, these new perspectives will have to come to terms with the modernist
resistance of Simmel and the other sociological classics’ remaining influence in
contemporary sociological theory.
KEYWORDS Durkheim, Marx, modernity, money, Simmel, sociological theory,

Weber
I know that I shall die without intellectual heirs, and that is as it should be.
My legacy will be, as it were, in cash, distributed to many heirs, each
transforming his part into use conformed to his nature: a use which will
reveal no longer its indebtedness to its heritage.
(Georg Simmel)

This paper takes as a point of departure Georg Simmel’s study of money in his
famous book The Philosophy of Money (1900, 1989, 1990). Against the back-
ground of this work, I will examine how the theme of money was reflected upon
in the social theories of Karl Marx, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. This
comparative investigation will serve to uncover some of the underlying theoretical
assumptions that account for the similarities and differences in the particular
perspectives of these classics. While Simmel’s work has regularly been evaluated in
comparison to any one of the sociological classics (e.g. Beilharz, 1996; Deutsch-
mann, 1996; Faught, 1985), it has not been assessed in terms of its (dis)associa-
tions with the classics as a unity. On the basis of an analysis of the money theme,
therefore, this paper will position and discuss Simmel as a classic among the
classics.
While not pretending to offer an in-depth investigation of the many
intricacies involved with comparing Simmel with Weber, Marx and Durkheim, this
paper will serve to elucidate the status and reception of Simmel’s work as one of
the building-blocks in the founding of sociology. Based on the insight that such
an endeavor has implications for the formation as well as reception of sociological
theory (Alexander, 1987), I will orient my discussion not only to an examination
of the sociological study of money proper, but also to the social context of
Simmel’s writings, to consider how his work has been received and evaluated in
sociology. This paper, then, will advance some theoretical ideas on the sociology
of money as well as present a chapter in the sociology of sociology.
I develop my arguments as follows. First, I briefly review the main theses
of Simmel’s work on money and relate it to his broader intellectual and socio-
logical project. Then, I discuss themes of a sociology of money in the writings of
Marx, Weber and Durkheim, and evaluate their work in comparison to Simmel’s.
Finally, I suggest how the reception of Simmel’s work and some of its assumptions
have affected, and may continue to shape, the sociological study of money.
Simmel on Sociology, Money, Individual and

Society
The work of Georg Simmel is most commonly analyzed in terms of its innovative
contribution to the study of society, that is, as a distinct mode of sociological
thinking. In Simmel’s substantive discussions of society, which have not been
ignored, his work on the social significance of money has generally not received
the attention that his other studies of modernity have come to enjoy. To use-
fully present Simmel’s analysis of money, I will discuss the basic themes of his
theoretical perspective, present a brief description of the various elements in his
sociology of money, and relate these back to his general sociological
outlook.
68 JOURNAL OF CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGY VOL 3(1)

A Picture of Simmel’s Sociology
Central to Simmel’s social theory are his conceptions of formal sociology and
notion of sociation, which are situated in a more encompassing distinction
between general, formal and philosophical sociology (Simmel, 1964, 1971: 1–40;
see also Frisby, 1985, 1992: 5–41; Levine, 1971; Wolff, 1964: xxvii–xl). Simmel
conceives of sociology in the first place as a method, a point of view from which to
take a picture of its field of study. The three divisions of general, formal and
philosophical sociology demarcate different viewpoints of sociological photogra-
phy. General sociology investigates the whole of historical life inasmuch as it is
societally formed. Historical developments can be perceived from different per-
spectives, each of which represents a particular frame of analysis or category of
thought in order to lay bare the objective, individual (subjective) and/or social
point of view. The social viewpoint is evidently central to sociology, although the
link with the other perspectives is for Simmel essential. In this respect, he devotes
most attention to the relationships and differences between individual and social
life, especially as they extend the historical narratives on particular groups
(Simmel, 1964: 26–39). Formal sociology is concerned with the study of societal
forms that result out of the sum of interaction among living humans. These forms
of life must be distinct from their content, Simmel argues, since groups with
different substantive content (referring to the relatively variable ‘what’ of social
life) may exhibit similar, even identical, forms, while the form of groups (referring
to the relatively stable ‘how’ of social action) can differ though their contents are
the same. The content of social life refers to the drives, interests, purposes,
inclination, and psychic states around which individuals come together in inter-
actions that take on certain forms (Simmel, 1964: 40–2). Typical for Simmel’s
study of formal sociology, for example, are his discussions of sociability, super-
ordination and subordination, competition and other associational forms as
informing social life through any historical concreteness of the specific manifesta-
tions of such principles (e.g. Simmel, 1964: 40–57 on sociability). Philosophical
sociology, finally, deals with the epistemology of the special social sciences
(engaged in the study of any one particular manifestation of social life) and the
metaphysics of their specific topics of investigation. As such, philosophical soci-
ology is the science of social science. In Simmel’s work, philosophical sociology is,
as Wolff (1964: xl) has argued, not of central concern apart from its programmatic
announcement to develop an epistemology of sociology and its indirect treatment
through a study of intellectual history, for example on individualism in social
thought from the 18th to the 19th century (Simmel, 1964: 58–84).
Formal sociology is Simmel’s favored domain, because he considers it to
provide the most distinct sociological response to the critique of historians that
the study of society would inevitably be bound to the various concrete, distinct
and always diverse historical forms of social life. The field of formal sociology is
closely linked to Simmel’s conception of individual and society, and the form/
DEFLEM THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF MONEY 69

content distinction in individual–social relationships. With the study of social
formations, Simmel wants to overcome the problems associated with methodo-
logical individualism, stressing the primacy of the individual, and holism or
sociologism, emphasizing the social. According to Simmel, neither one, society or
individual, is thinkable without the other. Central to the field of sociology are
precisely those social formations that overcome the individual/social dualism:
individuals engage with one another and thereby constitute the social. Society is
not just the sum total of individual acts, but refers to individuals interconnected
through social interaction.
Sociation (Vergesellschaftung) is a crucial concept in Simmel’s formal
sociology. Sociation constitutes the process that ties the parts to the whole,
individuals to one another and society. ‘Sociation is the form (realized in
innumerably different ways) in which individuals grow together into a unity and
within which their interests are realized. And it is on the basis of their interests . . .
that individuals form such unities’ (Simmel, 1971: 24). Most famous in respect of
Simmel’s notion of sociation is his perspective that conflict, rather than implying
any disconnectness, implies an association between the parties involved (e.g.
Simmel, 1964: 162–9). The inherent mutual implication of society and individual
suggests Simmel’s dialectical approach and its manifestations across social and
cultural forms (see Coser, 1977: 183–6). In his analysis of the picture frame, for
instance, Simmel likens the simultaneous wholeness of a work of art and it being
a unified whole with its surroundings to the ‘general difficulty of life that the
elements of totalities [groups] nevertheless lay claim to being autonomous
totalities [individuals] themselves’ (1994: 17). In the many concrete instances of
social life, also, sociation functions as a binding principle even and especially when
groups are relatively confined, as is in the case with the secret society (Simmel,
1964: 345–76). Writes Simmel, ‘sociation offers each of [the members of a secret
society] psychological support against the temptation of disclosure. Sociation
counterbalances the isolating and individualizing effect of the secret’ (1964:
355).
Social interaction, then, can be studied from the twofold perspective of
content and form, with the latter as the dominant theme in Simmel’s work.
Separated from the content of action, the forms of social life follow a logic of their
own. Behind every social formation there are forces at work that should be
isolated from the content of their manifestation – their analysis points to the value
of abstract or ‘pure’ sociology. As a logical consequence of these premises, Simmel
studied all kinds of social phenomena, for no matter how much they differ, behind
and within them forms of social life operate in society as a whole. The wide variety
of topics discussed by Simmel (fashion, law, space, women, poverty, secrecy, the
city, art, money) is justified by his premise that the study of any one particular
topic of sociological reflection inevitably implies its relatedness to other manifesta-
tions of social life. Any sociology of particularities is at once a ‘total’ sociology.

Snapshots of The Philosophy of Money
Simmel published his Philosophy of Money originally in 1900, and republished it in
1907, when the book was expanded to some 700 pages (Simmel, 1901–2
[reprinted in Simmel, 1989: 719–23], 1989). Divided over two parts, three
chapters each, Simmel relates money to just about every imaginable social
phenomenon and, indeed, argues for the inextricable links between money, the
individual and, ultimately, modern society in its totality. It is this characteristic of
total ‘relationalism’ that is so clearly obvious in Simmel’s work on money (Turner,
1986).
The first part of Simmel’s book is analytical, and aims at studying the being
(Wesen) of money out of the preconditions of social life. Most fundamentally,
Simmel proposes a study of money that transcends a purely economic approach.
The point, Simmel argues, is to go beyond money’s place in the market by linking
it to culture and society in order to understand the deeper ‘valuations and currents
of psychological, yes, even metaphysical presuppositions’ (1989: 13). First, he
analyzes the relationship of money to value (Wert), arguing that, while value has
an objective side to it (the value transgressing the boundaries of social and
individual realizations), it is through money that subjective values (that people
attach to particular objects) become objectified. Values can be differently attached
to one and the same object, and they are closely connected to objective value
(since they build up subjective values), but only in money can any subjective value
find full objective expression or manifestation. The desired object – while located
at a distance from the individual – can be captured through a monetary exchange
relation. The value is determined by the desire that people have to obtain an
object, not the use-value of the object. Trade is, according to Simmel, essential to
the constitution of money’s value, for trade allows objects to become exchange-
able with a value that can be expressed in monetary terms.
Money represents the objectified articulation (verselbständigte Ausdruck)
of exchange relationships, because, separated from all other goods, it is the
transformer of objects into commodities. Money in modern society becomes
more and more functional: it establishes relationships, and ties people to one
another by the flow of goods and services. The price of a product in this exchange,
Simmel contends, is ‘the measure of exchangeability that exists between it and the
totality of other products’ (1989: 123). Money represents the relatedness and
heterogeneity of objects: ‘money expresses the general element contained in all
exchangeable objects, . . . it is incapable of expressing the individual element in
them’ (1964: 390–1). Importantly, the substance of money itself no longer plays
a role in its function in exchange. Where once money had substance-value (e.g.
gold and silver coins), it has become a pure symbol to determine qualities
quantitatively. Money is an instrument entering into nearly all of people’s social
interactions. Never a purpose in itself (an sich), money has sheer infinite capacities
of applicability in exchange relations. At the same time, however, money can

become a purpose for itself (für sich), precisely because of its unlimited potentials
as a means: quantities of money become significant qualities. Economic con-
sciousness, the need to acquire, and monetary greed increase fundamentally in
significance not only in the market but in most every sphere of social life, a process
Simmel describes as the commodification of interactions or the general reduction
of quality to quantity.
The second, synthetic part of The Philosophy of Money Simmel directs at
unfolding the workings of money for the world, that is, the world of the
individual, culture and society. This leads Simmel to analyze money in relation to
individual liberty. He argues that money frees the person because the obligation
to use money (Geldverpflichtung) is only related to the product of labor or to the
buyer/seller on the market, but never to the whole person. Simmel expresses this
well in an analysis of superordination and subordination, where he writes: ‘Money
has carried to its extreme the separation . . . between man as a personality and man
as the instrument of a special performance or significance’ (1964: 293). Through
the formation of ties among innumerable individuals, money secures personal
liberty. In such relationships, money allows for the movement of property, and
property itself becomes an act, an engagement in interactions. Freedom, then,
refers intimately to property, the possession of goods or money, allowing for the
establishment of ever more relations: ‘The meditating concept for this correlation
between money on the one hand, and the enlargement of circles [of social
interaction], as well as the differentiation of individuals on the other, is often
private property as such’ (1989: 473). Money can overcome the physical and
social distance between individuals, Simmel argues, because of its capacity to be
absolutely transferable, confined with a process of individualization. At the same
time, however, persons in society are valued more exclusively in terms of money.
People can be measured in an objective and absolute way according to the
monetary value that entering a relationship with them represents. As such, money
exerts its influence in a variety of social domains: legal rights transform into
monetary claims, and labor relations become useful only inasmuch as they in-
volve monetary gains (wages).
Finally, Simmel debates how money also determines culture and the whole
rhythm of life. Modern life becomes an intellectual endeavor excluding emotional
considerations in favor of calculability. The culture of things replaces the culture
of persons, and the creativity of mind is subject to a process of reification
(Vergegenständlichung) in terms of calculable matter. A process of rational intellec-
tualization goes hand in hand with money’s capacity of transforming objects into
interchangeable commodities, both principles finding their most extreme realiza-
tion in the metropolis, ‘the seat of the money economy, [where] in rational
relations man is reckoned with like a number’ (1964: 411). The emergence of
romantic ideals and strong emotions, Simmel maintains, is but a reaction against
this monetarization of culture: money and intellect are exchangeable, people and

culture can be bought. Through money, all can be bought, all is related, all is in
constant motion – the world is in total flux.
Money and the Photography of Society

In the Preface to The Philosophy of Money Simmel states that his study of money is
meant as an example of the broader intent of his sociological enterprise to study
through ‘every singularity of life, the totality of its meaning’ (1989: 12). As Poggi
(1993) argues, money is for Simmel the central structure and symbol in the
historical formation of modern society. As such, Simmel’s analysis of money is
exemplary for his sociological approach. Indeed, the main themes of Simmel’s
sociological perspective can be retrieved in the book (see Frisby, 1990b: 5–13;
Turner, 1986).
The most outstanding characteristic of Simmel’s sociology in his discus-
sion on money is the relatedness (Wechselwirkung) of money to other social
phenomena. As Bryan Turner (1986: 95) remarks, in Simmel’s work ‘any item of
culture can be the starting point for sociological research into the nature of the
totality. . . . Nothing is trivial because everything is related’ (1986: 95). This
relationalism is typified by his examination of money as a social institution that can
only be understood within the total social framework within which it is imbedded.
Money points to the interdependencies of social life, the way in which all events,
things and individuals are related. Money has no intrinsic meaning but derives its
significance from its relatedness to money-vested objects and the money-needy
subjects that want to acquire these objects.
Money is also an important medium in the creation of social ties between
people. Society is not just a collection of individuals, and neither one can be
conceived without the other. Through money, relationships between people are
established. At the same time, however, these relations are reified into impersonal
cost–benefit alliances that are able to transgress social and physical boundaries.
The intellectualization process accompanying the expansion of the money econ-
omy involves a disintegration of substance into impersonal ties. A general
tendency to calculability and quantitative control, leading social interactions to
become dictated more by the money people have or represent, appears unavoid-
able to Simmel, particularly with money’s tendency to become an end in itself. Yet
personal freedom is preserved, can even be enhanced, on the basis of property to
be used in relations of calculable exchange. Referring to popular German expres-
sions for money, Simmel uses the notions of coal (Kohle) and dough (Knete) to
clarify the freedom-enhancing qualities of money (see Frerichs, 2001). The poor
by necessity have to use whatever little money they have as coal, burning through
it as they spend it for specific purposes. The rich, however, have the opportunity
to reshape the purpose of money, as if it is malleable like dough, and can spend,
save or invest money to accumulate wealth. To Simmel, also, money has eman-
cipatory effects because it frees the individual from membership restricted to any

one collectivity to a web of group affiliations with a plurality of individuals across
social categories and groups. Money in this way creates freedom (as lack of
constraint), albeit a freedom that dialectically implies a relative absence of en-
joyment, of sense, of quality. Writes Simmel, ‘money produces both a previously
unknown impersonality in all economic ownership and an equally enhanced
independence and autonomy of the personality’ (1991: 18). Money alienates and
separates but it also creates bonds among the members of the network where it
circulates.
Finally, while Simmel’s differentiation between general, formal and philo-
sophical sociology was not explicitly developed until after the publication of The
Philosophy of Money, both formal and philosophical components can be discerned
in this work. Most clearly, in seeking to go beyond the presuppositions of
monetary economics, Simmel presents a chapter in philosophical sociology. He
seeks to uncover the ontology of money’s role in society through ‘an inquiry into
the nature of reality suggested by social phenomena’ (Wolff, 1964: xxxiv). This
philosophical aspiration is at the same time imbedded in the formalism of
Simmel’s sociology. The central concept of sociation in his formal sociology is not
present in The Philosophy of Money, but other characteristics of the formal approach
underscore his analysis. For example, the form/content separation, which Simmel
sees more and more manifested in modern times, is exemplified by money’s
evolution from a substance-value (in gold or silver) to a purely functional device
(paper money). Money thus manages to reify all that social life – including the
economy but also culture – entails as content, transforming qualitative worth into
quantifiable functionality. Through the formal qualities of its operation, money
enables exchange at a distance and an extreme abstractness that fragments people
into formal properties, each of which carries a price-tag.
The Sociological Trinity on Money: Elements of

Deification
The analysis of Simmel’s study on money in this paper is intended to position and
discuss his work in relation to the other sociological classics. I therefore separately
review the treatment of money in the works of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, to
indicate those elements in the work of these classics that offer useful points for a
comparison with Simmel’s discussion of money. Although the sociological trinity
did not study money as an independent topic of inquiry, there are distinct
elements of a monetary theory that can nonetheless be deduced from their
respective writings.
Marx: Money and the Contradictions of Capitalism

In at least three of his writings, Marx paid specific attention to the functions of
money in society (see also Arnon, 1984; de Brunhoff, 1976; Ingham, 1998;

Lavoie, 1986; Morris, 1967). First, in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
of 1844, Marx (1978) devotes a chapter to ‘The Power of Money in Bourgeois
Society’. He argues that money represents the abstract relationships of private
property that have become detached from human relations of exchange. Money is
the epitome of man’s alienation: ‘That which is for me through the medium of
money – that for which I can pay (i.e. which money can buy) – that am I, the
possessor of the money’ (1978: 103). Money is the ultimate good, since it can
buy all other goods, but it transforms the real powers of man and nature into alien
abstractions reified in relations of exchange. In ‘On the Jewish Question’, the
alienating force of money Marx attributes particularly to the (Jewish) culture of
materialism: ‘Money is the jealous god of Israel, beside which no other god may
exist’ (1978: 50).
The humanistic approach to alienation is further elaborated by Marx in his
crucial work Grundrisse (1973), though here a more strictly economic analysis of
capitalism’s internal contradictions is also presented. Money is considered in
connection to capital–labor relations, and the focus is more exclusively on wages
and the formation of capital rather than on money as such. The accumulation of
the means of production and the transformation of money into capital cause it to
become an independent force that determines the mode of production. In this
broader process, Marx argues, money becomes increasingly detached from the
social relations that paradoxically have initially given rise to the formation of those
relationships. This element Marx particularly identifies in relation to wage-labor:
‘The capitalist, it seems, therefore, buys their [the workers’] labour with money.
They sell him their labour for money’ (1978: 204). Thus money reflects and
reifies social relations, and these relations become external to, and independent
from, the people that engage in them.
Marx’s speculations on the capitalist economy become fully matured in his
work Capital (1978: 294–442). Stripped of the Hegelian language that still
dominated his early works, Marx now develops a detailed economic analysis and
argues that the value of money is determined by the forces of production and not
by the market conditions of supply and demand. In the chapter on ‘Commodities
and Money’ (1978: 302–29), specifically, Marx argues that to become a com-
modity, a good must be transferable into any other one, and money is the medium
that enables this transfer of commodities. The next chapter discusses the impor-
tance of the transformation of money into capital through the transformation of
money into commodities and back into money. The change from money to
capital, however, does not occur in money itself. Instead, in order for money to be
converted into capital, a special commodity must exist whose consumption is an
embodiment of labor and a creation of value – this, Marx contends, can only be
labor-power. This labor-theory of value is based on Marx’s critique of commodity
fetishism as the unquestioned belief that goods possess value as an inherent
property. Marx writes,

. . . to find an analogy, we must have resource to the mist-enveloped
regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human
brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into
relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of
commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism
which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are
produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the
production of commodities.
(1978: 321)
Unmasking this fetishism, Marx’s historical materialism unveiled that a com-

modity has exchange-value only because it stands in a particular relation to human
labour and production.
Congruent with Marx’s theory of value, money is intimately tied up with
labor and a concept of value based on labor and, therefore, labor products. To
Marx, money is itself a commodity but one that in abstract form also represents
the value of other commodities. As such, money is not just a medium of exchange,
but also a means of domination. For as a universal measure for value (and the
labor it entails), money symbolizes the capitalist mode of production and its social
relations of exploitation. It is on the basis of this labor-theory of value that Marx
goes on to construct his theories of labor power, the creation of surplus value, and
the expropriation of the worker. The specific but relatively limited role Marx
attributes to money in his explanation of the contradictions of capitalism is clear:
the division of labor, the accumulation of capital, the opposition between
bourgeoisie and proletariat, and the inherently contradictory mode of capitalist
production are the central elements that account for industrialized society. The
study of money to Marx only makes sense as part of a more encompassing analysis
of capitalism.
Weber: Money and the Rationalization of Society

Max Weber’s treatment of the role of money in society forms part of his
sociological discussions on the rationalization processes in industrial society. In
The Protestant Ethic, Weber argues that the ethic of Protestantism has as its
summum bonum ‘the earning of more and more money, combined with the strict
avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life’ (1976: 53). The acquisition of
wealth is an end in itself, and the Protestant is preoccupied by the making
of money, albeit in an ascetic way. It is this methodical attitude that Weber holds
responsible for the formal-rational conduct to life that he considers so important
in the development of capitalism. The irrational accumulation of wealth (irra-
tional, because money is denied its very reason for existence, namely exchange)
accelerates the rationalization of the capitalist money economy. The ethics of
Protestantism thus contributed to the rise of capitalism by its ‘amazingly good, we

may even say a pharisaically good, conscience in the acquisition of money, so long
as it took place legally’ (1976: 176).
Weber also discusses the role of the money economy throughout his later
works, particularly in the posthumous collection Economy and Society (1954,
1958a, 1958b, 1958c, 1962). Basically, he outlines the characteristics of ration-
alized, modern society in several social domains, and the money economy is
thereby seen as one of the driving forces. In the paper ‘Religious Rejections of the
World and Their Direction’, for instance, Weber elaborates on the theme of The
Protestant Ethic, and argues that the calculable method of life, characteristic of the
rational economy of capitalism, finds in money ‘the most abstract and “imper-
sonal” element that exists in human life’ (1958c: 331). Elsewhere, Weber (1954,
1962) similarly argues for the social significance of money in creating the
possibility of rational calculability, the possibility of assigning money values to all
goods and services, which creates impersonal relations of exchange between the
participants in the market because money is the accepted means of exchange. The
money economy is also seen to determine the structure of bureaucracies, in that it
is necessary to provide the income to maintain them (based on a system of
taxation) since they cannot be derived from private profits (1958b: 204–9).
Weber’s definition of class, finally, essentially refers to the possession of goods and
the opportunities for (monetary) income (1958a: 181–3). But, of course, while
Weber in his work emphasizes the role of the money economy in the development
of nearly all facets of modernity, he also pays considerable attention to cultural,
religious, political, technological and legal processes of rationalization in the
formation of modern society. The ‘elective affinity’ (Wahlverwantschaft) between
these factors is precisely one of his most fundamental methodological claims, so
that he treats money always in relation to other social forces.
Durkheim: Money and the Morality of the Social Order

Of all the classics, Durkheim is probably the one who least addressed the issue of
money in his sociological work. In attempting to reconstruct a Durkheimian
monetary theory, it is to be noted that Durkheim’s doctoral dissertation on the
social division of labor (1984) includes but very minimal discussions of the money
economy. Instead, the emphasis in his study is on modern society’s capacity to
maintain solidarity in light of growing trends of individualization. He outlines an
evolutionary model from mechanical to organic solidarity, whereby the nature of
solidarity is seen to shift from one between identical, substitutable elements to one
between distinct, functionally specialized parts. The latter refers primarily to the
division of labor between workers, but also includes social relations established
through monetary exchange. But Durkheim does not discuss economic forces as
such, instead placing premium on the social regulations, collective beliefs and
sentiments that underlie these processes – they are in the final analysis responsible
for a society’s cohesion (or lack thereof as a result of anomie).

Additionally, in Suicide, Durkheim (1951) employs a similar argument to
account for the rise in suicide-rates whenever there is a positive or negative, but
always abrupt, transition in economic life, and because of the chronic state of
anomie in the world of trade and industry. Economic crises lead to a sudden
weakening of social regulations, which brings about a disruption of the social
limits set to man’s desires. Such desires can include the need to acquire more and
more money, and the economic crises may refer to monetary losses or gains.
Durkheim specifically mentions prices of the most necessary foods and the fact
that world expositions ‘bring more money into the country and are thought to
increase public prosperity’ (pp. 244–5). The lack of regulations in the economic
world, responsible for suicide as a regular factor, consists in the freeing of
industrial relations from all constraints on (monetary) needs. However, Durkheim
conceives of the morality of the social order that can and should guide economic
forces as the crucial theme of sociological reflection, not the economy or money as
such.
Simmel versus the Trinity: A Stranger among the

Classics?
It is apparent that Marx, Weber and Durkheim did not pay as much exclusive
attention to money as an autonomous domain of sociological inquiry as Simmel
did, although none of them entirely denied the significance of money in their
respective analyses. Simmel’s approach to money diverges from each of the other
classics’ in ways that can be explained with reference to their respective general
theoretical perspectives. On the one hand, of course, Marx’s influence on Simmel,
Durkheim and Weber may indicate a centrality of the influence of historical
materialism or at least an elective affinity among the classics in their development
of sociological theory from the second half of the 19th century onwards. On the
other hand, the concentration on the money theme in Simmel’s work also licenses
a thematically more delineated approach that can identify the theoretical concerns
that distinguish his work from that of the other classics.
The Age of Sociology

Since Parsons (1937) as well as some of his critics (e.g. Giddens, 1971), the
history of sociological thought has firmly been established in the major trans-
formations of society in the 19th century (Collins, 1994; Holton, 1996). Building
on the centrality of social change, the classics thereby also converged their
thinking, or at least transformed their thought in substantial respects. The
transformation from or rift between the younger and older Marx is well docu-
mented. In Durkheim, the anti-voluntaristic orientation of the early period of
social realism was refashioned in his later work on religion. And Weber’s

influences from German idealism and romanticism place meaning and inter-
pretation completely at the center of his methodology.
In the work of Simmel, similar themes and transformations are at work
(see Coser, 1977; Frisby, 1987: 423–4; Levine, 1997; Scaff, 1988: 3–7). Among
Simmel’s most important initial intellectual influences are German Völkerpsycholo-
gie, particularly the notion that social totality historically antecedes the individual,
but also the idea that there is an evolutionary trend toward the development of
individuality. The emphasis on individuality in Simmel’s writings until the late
1880s leads Simmel himself to refer to his work as psychological contributions.
Thereafter, however, he explicitly proclaimed sociological objectives, with a
peculiar interest in philosophically grounding the sociological project. Particularly
in the last decade of the 19th century, Simmel was heavily involved in sociological
work and his contribution to establish sociology as an independent science.
During this period, he wrote most of his explicitly sociological work and was
among the first to teach a course in sociology. However, although this task was
accomplished a decade later in an institutional sense (as sociology had become a
discipline with its own journals and institutionalization in the academic world),
Simmel’s programmatic formulations of a new science of society had not pro-
duced the results to which he aspired. Disillusioned, he turned to philosophical,
metaphysical matters. As I will discuss in more detail later, his turn away from
sociology in the stricter sense of the term was never complete, but this was mostly
because of efforts on the part of his students (especially Albion Small’s successful
endeavors to bring Simmel’s work to the attention of American sociologists [see
Levine, 1997: 181–3]).
These shifts in Simmel’s work are especially significant in the context of
The Philosophy of Money. For it is in this work that he shifts from a sociological
analysis of social forms to an emphasis on moral autonomy, individuality, existen-
tial responsibility and personal experience (Holton, 1996: 45–7; Levine, 1997:
183). Intimately part of this orientation towards a philosophy of culture is the
notion, which figures so prominently in The Philosophy of Money, that a major
evolutionary trend in modern society is the development of increasing individ-
uality. As Levine (1997) has shown, for the notion of an increasing individual
subjectivity Simmel found intellectual support in the work of Nietzsche and, more
broadly, Hegel’s perspective of self-consciousness. More broadly, the general
evolutionary orientation was of course no stranger to sociological theorizing of
the latter half of the 19th century, finding expression, most clearly, in the works
of Durkheim and, especially, Spencer (which had initially stimulated Simmel to
sociological investigations). The centrality of individuality comes to the fore-
ground most clearly in The Philosophy of Money, with its emphasis on money as a
universal impersonal measure of value that also enables new and expanded
subjective experiences. In other words, Simmel maintains that as much as it is true
that there are de-personalization trends in modernity, it also and still allows for
individuals to react creatively and make one’s own world in the money economy,

for ‘the metropolitan individual is not simply a passive victim of consumerism’
(Holton, 1996: 46). Let us now consider how the centrality of the money theme
in Simmel’s work relates more specifically to the other sociological classics.
Simmel and Marx

In the Preface to his study on money, Simmel claims that he wants to adjust
historical materialism by looking at economic processes as the result of deeper
presuppositions, while preserving the explanatory model of the influence of
economic life upon culture (1989: 13). Simmel’s relation to Marx in the study
of money thus comprises both similarities and differences in approach (see
Deutschmann, 1996; Frankel, 1977: 17–27; Turner, 1986: 100–4). Indeed, on
the one hand, some of the themes in Marx’s work reappear in some form in
Simmel’s study. First, there is the evolutionary sketch of money from simple barter
to the more complex and more complete existence of money as paper money. In
addition, both Simmel and Marx use religious analogies to denote the impersonal
nature of money (the Holy Grail, money as fetish), and this theme of impersonal-
ization through money is apparent in the writings of both authors. Although
Marx’s Grundrisse were not yet discovered during Simmel’s life, he unwittingly
reconstructed some of the classical Marxist themes of objectification and aliena-
tion (Turner, 1986: 101–3). Money is seen by both Simmel and Marx as the
purest form of reification; it is the technically most perfected medium of modern
economic exchange that transforms all quality into quantity, alienates people from
their true existence, and fragments their personalities into formal properties.
On the other hand, Simmel’s approach is in several respects antagonistic to
Marx’s throughout The Philosophy of Money. The main difference in their respec-
tive approaches is that Marx holds the capitalist mode of production responsible
for the contradictions of modern, industrialized society, while for Simmel it is the
money economy as such that is the cause of the impersonalization of social
relations. Marx’s theory is primarily concerned with the capitalist sphere of
production and the relation between money, labor and capital, while Simmel
concentrates on the distribution and circulation of goods, which are held to
constitute a value-creating sphere of exchange. Seeking to move deeper than
historical materialism to reach at the psychological and metaphysical meanings of
the concrete historical manifestations of economic forms, Simmel’s Philosophy of
Money is a fundamental critique of Marx’s political economy. While in Marx’s
work, too, money has different functions (as a measure of value, a medium of
exchange and a means of accumulating wealth), it was always of central concern to
Marx that money ‘embodied abstract labour and that the value of money was
determined by the conditions of production’ (Turner, 1986: 109). Opposing
most critically this economicization of money, Simmel locates money resolutely in
the broad realm of human experience. In Simmel, money is only loosely tied to its
material basis and instead represents a sociological phenomenon, a form of human

interaction. Therefore, also, exchange is for him a crucial form of sociation,
whereas the economy is only one special form of exchange (see Frisby, 1985:
59–60). Whereas Marx’s theory of value is based on the productive relations of
the human subject with nature through labor, Simmel presents a relativist theory
of value that posits that the value of things rests on a subjective judgment, on
valuation. Therefore, those goods that are difficult to obtain for the individual
who wants them – within certain limits of feasibility – will be the most valuable
(Sassatelli, 2000).
The differences between Simmel’s formal-philosophical sociology, in
search of the universals of humanity, and Marx’s concrete economic-historical
analysis, aimed at the general laws of capitalism, are manifested in their respective
value theories. Also, as far as the problematic sides of money are concerned
(reification, fragmentation), Marx’s analysis is, in however paradoxical a way, more
optimistic, since capitalism, he argues, will one day undermine itself. Simmel’s
analysis instead points to the role of money as a world of its own, driven by the
nature of human life, which cannot just be overthrown. Conversely, along with
the growth of money as a pure symbol, Simmel defines freedom in relation to the
possession of money as providing the means to engage in social interactions. For
Marx, this potential of increased freedom and individualization is of course far
more problematic: the freedom of some can only be maintained by the unfreedom
of many others. Underlying these differences in approach, Simmel’s discontent
with socialist ideology can be discerned. To Simmel, socialism cannot eradicate all
distinctions between people, at least not without destroying their freedom (see
Simmel, 1964: 73–8).
Simmel and Weber

The relationship between Simmel and Weber is a peculiar one. They were close
friends, but the intellectual influences between them are not very clear and have
been a topic of considerable scholarly debate (see Abel, 1970: 112–14; Faught,
1985; Léger, 1986; Levine, 1972, Lichtblau, 1991; Nedelmann, 1988; Scaff,
1987, 1988; Turner, 1986: 104–10; C. Turner, 1989). On the one hand, there
are affinities between Simmel’s and Weber’s work. They generally share a meth-
odological concern for the role of understanding (Verstehen), and the accompany-
ing concepts of sociation and social interaction. Also, Simmel’s identification of
the form of social action may have inspired Weber’s development of ideal-types
(although the former has metaphysical status, while the latter is a methodological
device). As members of the intellectual life of Berlin, they both had first-hand
access to the achievements of modern, metropolitan culture. Although for the
Protestant Weber this primarily meant an inquiry into subjective and objective
culture, while the Jewish Simmel was more attracted to the new aesthetics of
modernity, they both expressed a fatalistic theme in their sociology and identified
the cold-hearted objectification of culture.

The impersonal nature of money in exchange relations identified by
Simmel corresponds closely to Weber’s notion of bureaucratization in terms of
purposive rationality (Zweckrationalität). Both Simmel and Weber concentrate on
the role of money in modern society as enabling an increasing quantification of
relations and fragmentation of the human person into functional partitions.
Money is seen to transform personal bonds into calculable instrumental ties.
Simmel’s Philosophy of Money may well have been a direct source of inspiration for
Weber’s analysis of modern bureaucratization. (Weber read the book after a
period of illness around 1902.) Weber’s analyses of the methodical conduct of life,
the rational calculation and intellectualization, the dominance of bureaucratic
control, and the growing process of secularization into the iron cage of modernity
presuppose a rational money system, and similar themes are discussed in Simmel’s
study on money.
Weber in his writings hardly ever referred to Simmel’s work and, when he
did, he was quite critical about some of Simmel’s intentions. Weber wrote a
critique of Simmel’s sociological approach, including his analysis of money, but,
probably because Simmel had difficulties acquiring a full professorship, he never
finished the paper (Weber, 1972). Still, the unfinished manuscript does indicate
some of the differences in their perspectives. Weber argues that, while Simmel has
advanced some important theoretical ideas and made subtle empirical observa-
tions, there are numerous unacceptable aspects in his methodology. Most criti-
cally, Weber refutes Simmel’s methodological approach and his notion of
interaction. He criticizes Simmel’s interpretive method for proceeding largely on
the basis of analogy, which to the specialist is devoid of any sense. With respect to
Simmel’s notion of interaction, Weber argues that it is so vague and broad that it
is not possible to ‘conceive of an influence of one person by another that would be
purely “one-sided”, i.e., not containing a certain element of “interaction” ’
(1972: 163).
In some of Weber’s other works, more of his disagreements with Simmel’s
approach are revealed. Thematically most interesting is that Weber in The
Protestant Ethic specifically criticizes Simmel’s Philosophy of Money. While he calls it
a ‘brilliant analysis’, he also maintains that Simmel does not sufficiently distinguish
between the money economy in general and capitalism in particular, ‘to the
detriment of his concrete analysis’ (1976: 193, 185). Weber in his work indeed
paid attention to the structural conditions of the capitalist money economy,
whereas Simmel developed a phenomenology of money as a medium of the
human experience of reality as such. Weber sought to look beyond the formalism
of social action, and wanted to unveil its psycho-cultural dimension (why people
act), while Simmel argued to go beyond substantivism in order to understand
social interactions in terms of the forms they have (how people act).
From a methodological viewpoint, Weber maintains in Economy and
Society that his work ‘departs from Simmel’s method (in Soziologie and Philosophie
des Geldes) in drawing a sharp distinction between subjectively intended and

objectively valid “meanings”; two different things which Simmel not only fails to
distinguish but often deliberately treats as belonging together’ (Weber, cited in
Frisby, 1990b: 14). As Levine (1997: 178–9) clarifies, Simmel developed an
explicit interest in Verstehen only after 1900. This may have been due to, or at least
it harmonizes with, the fact that Simmel for strategic reasons did not wish to be
explicit about his opposition to Wilhelm Dilthey’s hermeneutics. For in contrast
to the Diltheyan Verstehen method that conceived of society as singular mean-
ingful events, Simmel in his work seeks to construct general propositions that can
account for manifold historical events (Dahme, 1990: 14–19). This methodo-
logical conflict was meaningful in a professional sense because Dilthey hindered
Simmel’s career opportunities at Berlin.
Once Simmel had clarified his methodology more explicitly, it was influen-
tial for Weber’s approach but mostly as a negative model (see Frisby, 1987:
425–7; Lichtblau, 1991; Scaff, 1988: 13–17; Turner, 1986: 104–5). In particular,
Weber sought to depart from Simmel’s methodology in formulating a cognitive
rational interpretation of motives, rather than a psychological theory of conscious-
ness. For Simmel it was indisputable ‘that all social events . . . are rooted in souls,
that sociation is a psychological phenomenon’ (cited in Nedelmann, 1988: 20).
Against this psychologism, Weber’s method of understanding of action has to be
restricted to the subjective intentions of human agents, and is clearly distinguished
from, if also related to, causal explanations (in the sense of causal pluralism and
Wahlverwantschaft) of the social structures in which actions are imbedded (see
Gerth and Mills, 1958: 55–61). Echoing the famous connection Weber draws
between understanding and explanation, he criticizes Simmel for not clearly
distinguishing the interpretation of motives of actors and the socio-historical
context of meaning.
Simmel and Durkheim

Durkheim was quite well acquainted with Simmel’s work and published two
review articles on books by Simmel, including a review of The Philosophy of Money
(Durkheim, 1900–1, 1902–3). Durkheim also discussed Simmel’s sociological
theory at some length in two other papers (Durkheim, 1964, 1982; see also Abel,
1970: 108–12; Bentley, 1926; Frisby, 1990a: xvii–xviii; Maffesoli, 1988; Meš-
trovic, 1991: 54–74; Naegele, 1958; Thompson, 1982; Wolff, 1958). As far as
Simmel’s general sociological theory is concerned, Durkheim strongly disagrees
with Simmel’s a-historical formalism. According to Durkheim, form only applies
to social morphology (an approach that he rejected, particularly in Suicide), and
the separation of form and content rests on nothing but Simmel’s idiosyncratic
arbitrary judgment. Durkheim asserts that the special social sciences, concerned
with the processes or variable contents of human existence, are just as much
sociological as is the study of the external forms of the collectivity. The forms and
substance of relationships are social facts, that is, for both it holds that ‘one cannot

but feel present the hand of society, which organises them and whose stamp they
plainly bear’ (1982: 191). Contrary to Simmel’s view of society as being essen-
tially involved with the sociation of individuals, Durkheim emphasizes that society
is a moral milieu that serves a function of integration, referring to the (formal)
attachment of people to society, but that also exhibits a particular regulatory
force, referring to (substantive) moral codes and rules.
Simmel’s conception of the relationship between society and individual is
markedly different from Durkheim’s. Of course, as analysts of the fin de siècle, they
share the ideas of a force sui generis (Simmel’s metaphysics versus Durkheim’s
collective conscience) and a historical account of a process into modernity that is
characterized by a general impersonalization and functional compartmentalization
of social relations. But Durkheim’s identification of social facts exerting their
influence over individuals and having a life of their own regardless of individual
manifestations cannot be easily reconciled with Simmel’s notion of sociation and
stress on individual differences in social interactions.
Durkheim’s specific objections to Simmel’s Philosophy of Money fit well
within this general critique. Durkheim (1900–1) argues that Simmel’s book (as
the title indicates) presents a social philosophy and is not sociology sensu stricto,
for he discusses just about every conceivable fact and thought related to money,
especially in the second synthetic part, and the facts he there presents are often
imprecise and unwarranted. Too many diverse questions are dealt with, Durkheim
argues, and, lacking any analysis, Simmel fails to see that the force of money does
not derive from any of its presumed intrinsic values. What is far more important to
Durkheim is ‘the presence or absence of the regulation to which [money] is
submitted, and the nature of that regulation’ (1900–1: 145). Unlike Simmel’s
identification of alienation and the fragmentation of personality into functional
parts as a result of the essence of money, Durkheim held that the division of labor
is not pathological as such, but only when it lacks a developed system of solidary
organizations and the necessary regulations concerning how these organizations
should come together. In sum, Durkheim cannot agree with Simmel’s abstract
approach: money cannot have such a profound moral influence solely on the
grounds of its formal characteristics. What matters to Durkheim is the moral
regulation through which money is controlled, not money as such.
Simmel and the Prospects of a Sociology of

Money
This analysis of Simmel in relation to the other classics has revealed some of the
underlying distinctions between these different perspectives in classical theory.
However, this confrontation by itself does not suffice to evaluate Simmel as a
sociological classic and assess the influence of his work for the sociological study of
money. Sociological theory-building is the result not only of conceptual argu-
mentation and debate, but just as much of the actual reception of a body of

knowledge in the sociological community (Alexander, 1987; Lamont, 1987). Any
judgment of sociological theories necessarily implies, and should take into
account, a clarification of the historical dimension in theory formation.
Simmel’s (Lack of) Influence in Sociology

The influence of Simmel’s work in sociology is marked by an ambivalence that
seems to have haunted him throughout his life (see Coser, 1958, 1977: 194–9;
Frisby, 1990a: xv–xxv; Gerth and Mills, 1958: 21). While Simmel had good
connections with Berlin’s cultural and intellectual elite at the turn of the 20th
century, he was excluded for a long time from influential university positions. He
remained a lecturer (Privatdozent) and honorary professor at the University of
Berlin, and had to move to Strasbourg to become full professor only in 1914. The
slow progression in Simmel’s career was likely the result of anti-Semitic senti-
ments, but his eclectic theories also caused him to remain somewhat of an outsider
in the scholarly environment. Still, during his lifetime Simmel’s work received
quite some attention, as can for instance be seen from the large number of, mostly
positive, reviews of The Philosophy of Money (e.g. Altmann, 1903; Duprat, 1900;
Mead, 1901; Meyer, 1901).
The ambivalent reception of Simmel’s work during his lifetime also
conditioned his early influence in the United States (Frisby, 1992: 155–62;
Levine, 1991; Levine et al., 1976; Wolff, 1964: xxiv–xxv). Early issues of The
American Journal of Sociology contained some 15 papers by Simmel and generally
paid a lot of attention to the German scholar. (Several Chicago sociologists had
studied in Germany.) In the later development of American sociology, however,
Simmel’s work seems to have been largely ignored. George Herbert Mead (1901)
wrote a (very positive) review of Simmel’s Philosophy of Money in an economic
journal, but to the present day Simmel’s influence in economics is really non-
existent. Other American sociologists (Park, Burgess, Spykman) published on
Simmel, and offered translations of his work to the American readership, but with
only moderate success. When Parsons (1937) published his first systematic social
theory, referring abundantly to European sociologists, Simmel was excluded apart
from some scant references. (Parsons drafted a chapter on Simmel and Tönnies
but did not include it in his book; see Parsons, 1998.) With the subsequent rise of
functionalism, little attention was paid to Simmel’s sociology (Saiedi, 1987).
Simmel’s work was marginalized as a result of the rise of Parsonian functionalism,
and the post-functionalist attack on Parsons did little to revive it (Alexander,
1987: 34–46). As late as 1976, a review paper could be published on the influence
of Simmel’s work for substantive areas in American sociological research, without,
quite rightly, mentioning the theme of money (Levine et al., 1976).
Apart from unfavorable historical conditions, there are also theoretical
causes for Simmel’s poor reception. There are good reasons to say that any social
theory, however complex, simplifies reality by ordering modern civilization

according to an encompassing explanatory model. As my review of the money
theme in the work of Marx, Weber and Durkheim has shown, their studies took
into account money as an element of sociological inquiry only within a more
encompassing perspective aimed at unfolding the central, in this way unifying,
theme of analyzing (and criticizing) modern industrialized societies. Marx focused
on money within a more encompassing study of the capitalist mode of produc-
tion; Weber discussed the money economy in relation to the broader trends of
societal rationalization; and Durkheim concentrated on the moral regulatory
structures in which money is socially imbedded. Capitalism, rationalization and
social morality are the respective keywords, providing unity to the traditions of
sociological theory and diversity to theoretical sociology. Such a clear-cut
approach is not what characterizes Simmel’s sociology of everything, which is
resistant to being pinned down into one or the other determining category of
sociological thought. It is for these reasons that Simmel has often been called a
talented essayist with a striking love of details (see Levine, 1997: 173; Dahme,
1990: 17). Also, unlike the other classics of sociology, Simmel did not hold
industrialism to be the central turning point in the evolution to modern society.
Rather, he considered the money economy in general, without it being specifically
tied to capitalism or the division of labor in industrialism, as decisive for the ‘Great
Transformation’ into modernity (Lawrence, 1980: 182–3). He offered a unique
characterization of modernity, and provided new basic tools for its sociological
study (separation of form and content, relationalism, the possibility of social
order). Still, his disinclination to specialize and his refusal to argue for one clear-
cut driving force in the evolution to modernity have led his work not to be
indisputably classified as classic (see Frisby, 1992: 45–63).
Past, Present and Future of the Sociology of Money

Over the past decades, Simmel’s social theory has witnessed a notable revival,
especially with the advent of the new cultural studies and the discussions on
modernity and postmodernity (see, e.g., Backhaus, 1998; Blegvad, 1989; Dahme,
1990; Featherstone, 1991; Gross, 2001; Scaff, 1988; C. Turner, 1989; Weinstein
and Weinstein, 1990, 1993). The sociology of money, too, has been the subject of
renewed sociological interest (e.g. Baker and Jimerson, 1992; Condominas, 1989;
Ingham, 1998; Singh, 2000; Zelizer, 1994). Of course, the money theme has
never been totally absent from sociology. Noteworthy are Parsons and Smelser’s
functional analysis of money as a generalized medium of interaction (Parsons and
Smelser, 1956; Smelser, 1963), Luhmann’s autopoietic notion of money (1985),
Habermas’s thesis of the monetary colonization of the lifeworld (1981), and
Giddens’ discussions of money and trust in his structuration theory of modernity
(1990, 1991). However, none of these renowned authors base their theories on
Simmel. Habermas, for instance, develops his concept of money out of a critical
reappraisal of Parsons, and he quotes Simmel only three times in his analysis of

theories of modernity (1985: 170, 298, 371). To Habermas (1983, 1996),
Simmel’s philosophy of the subject (Lebensphilosophie) is unacceptable from the
standpoint of post-metaphysical communication-theory. Likewise, Giddens,
though claiming that The Philosophy of Money is ‘the most far-reaching and
sophisticated account of the connections between money and modernity’ (1991:
22), only briefly discusses Simmel’s notions of trust and space (1990: 18;
1991: 22–9).
In addition to the analysis of money in the works of these ‘contemporary’
classics, money has recently gained a more accepted status as a topic of socio-
logical inquiry (see, e.g., Dodd, 1994; Doyle, 1992; Ganßmann, 1988; Ingham,
1994, 1996; Smelt, 1980; Zelizer, 1989). Some scholars have even begun to
develop sociological analyses of money in contemporary society explicitly on the
basis of Simmel’s ground-breaking work (e.g. Deutschman, 2000; Ritzer, 2001;
Sassatelli, 2000). Christoph Deutschman (2000), most clearly, has developed an
alternative to a functionalist sociology of money by arguing that Simmel’s
conceptualization of money as an ‘absolute means’ allows for a useful perspective
of money’s role in modern society in relation to broader currents of individualiza-
tion and modernization.
Apart from the historical fact that sociologists have mostly neglected
money (Ingham, 1998; Pixley, 1999), two tensions continue to trouble the
reception of the sociological study of money. First, sociologies of money cannot
find a way in to economic studies, where monetary theories are largely developed
on the basis of discussions of Keynes, Smith, Ricardo or Marx. This lack of multi-
disciplinary collaboration is regrettable since economics is after all essentially
concerned with the study of money. Moreover, because any sociology of money
should clarify the specific sociological contribution, debate with economic mone-
tary theories seems indispensable. And, second, the historical neglect of money in
sociology – indicative is the fact that Simmel’s Philosophy of Money was translated
into English nearly 80 years after the German original – cannot be overcome
overnight. Regardless of whether or not money is theoretically considered a
suitable topic for sociological investigation, sociology’s history de facto constrains
money’s receptiveness into the field. The vagueness and internal inconsistencies
that mark most contemporary sociological studies of money, not surprisingly
therefore, all too clearly confirm that ‘there is no systematic sociology of money’
(Zelizer, 1991: 1304).
Simmel and the Quest for Sociological Theory

An assessment of Simmel’s sociological theory also includes considerations on
relevant aspects in the history of theory formation. The factual resistance against
Simmel’s sociology and the study of money as a theme of its own will also
condition an evaluation of the merits of his work. From this perspective, the
recent revival of Simmel in postmodern theories deserves attention, minimally

because Simmel handed down the interconnected particularities of his writings
and because they have inspired the current debate on postmodernity. This issue
calls for a more profound investigation than I can offer here, but the discussion of
Simmel’s study of money and the confrontation with the other classics offer
important elements for a useful assessment of Simmel today.
Apart from the obvious fact that the neglect of Simmel’s sociology has
always been more relative than absolute, it should be noted that the contemporary
(re)appraisal of his work is not the exclusive property of postmodern theories.
Simmel’s discussion of small-group interaction has gained an established place in
symbolic interactionism and, to a lesser extent, in social psychology. Moreover,
the inspiration of Simmel’s work on culture is regularly manifested in cultural
sociology, which is surely not the exclusive domain of postmodern theorizing.
Additionally, in attempting to construct a synthesis in theoretical sociology,
Simmel’s sociology has also been related to the work of social theorists with a
more accepted status (see, e.g., Levine, 1991, 2000 on Simmel and Parsons).
Most remarkable is the fact that over the last decade Simmel’s work has
been revived because of its appropriation in postmodern theories. David Frisby
has offered insightful material to systematically assess Simmel’s relation to post-
modernity (Frisby, 1985, 1990c, 1992: 64–79, 155–74). Frisby describes Sim-
mel’s work as characterized by essentially modernist aspirations. Simmel’s
conception of modernity is closely akin to Baudelaire’s formulation of the modern
as the mode of experiencing the new as transitory. This is demonstrated by
Simmel’s emphasis on the fluidity of forms of action and the interrelatedness of all
manifestations of modern culture.
Paradoxically, however, Simmel’s analysis of modernity has been a major
source of inspiration for theories of the postmodern. Frisby (1992: 169–74)
discusses Simmel’s notion of pure exchange, his emphasis on culture, and the
primacy of the aesthetic experience as decisive in this regard. I would add that
Simmel’s relationalist approach and his manifold studies of the dyad, the triad, the
nobility, the metropolis, silence, secrecy, the stranger, landscapes, sociability, and
so forth, may well fit with the postmodern claim for order out of chaos. His
discussions of the interrelatedness of the fragments of modernity, particularly his
The Philosophy of Money, in which he makes excursions into just about every
conceivable topic connected to money, ironically fit well with the postmodernist
contention that the only thing left to discuss is everything. Yet it makes sense to
argue, as Sassatelli does, that Simmel’s insistence on relationalism and sociation, in
his The Philosophy of Money as well as across the rest of his oeuvre, should be
conceived as ‘the most perilous interdisciplinary pursuit within modern episteme’
(2000: 209). To what extent the postmodern appropriation of Simmel’s work can
indeed be upheld, particularly given the fact that it had modernist aspirations,
how it will come to terms with the persisting influence of the other classics in
sociology, and to what extent it may be the case that Simmel’s sociology will be

judged not by its original intentions but by the meaning ascribed to it today are
the central questions theorists will have to address.
Conclusion
I have evaluated Simmel’s study of money in confrontation with the other
sociological classics to indicate the markedly ambivalent place of his writings in the
history of sociological thought. Although there may be limitations to this
discussion of the selected classics, my examination revealed that a striking element
in Simmel’s writings, as compared to Marx, Weber and Durkheim, is his refusal to
locate any underlying pivotal force in the course to modernity. The totality of
formally interrelated parts is modernity, not its explanation through reference to
the capitalist economy (Marx), the mutual influence of culture and economy
(Weber), or the changing nature of morality in light of industrialism (Durkheim).
Therefore, Simmel can study money ‘as such’, while for Marx, Weber and
Durkheim it would make little sense if a monetary theory is not part of, and
clarified in relation to, a more broadly explanatory theory of society. In light of
these methodological considerations, and given the recent reception of Simmel’s
work in postmodern theories, there are reasons to argue that Simmel today is a
postmodern theorist, precisely to the extent in which he is recognized as such by
contemporary commentators. This historical condition at once poses serious
theoretical challenges to both sides of the modern–postmodern spectrum. In light
of my review of Simmel’s theory in relation to the other classics of sociology, some
indications can be given on the directions this debate could take. On the one
hand, the present postmodern appraisal of Simmel’s work calls for Simmelian
sociologists of a different persuasion to clarify the modernist core of Simmel’s
work – how to reconcile such a position with Simmel’s ‘great indeterminacy’ and
sheer ‘enumeration’ (Durkheim, 1902–3: 649), the ‘diffidence and even indif-
ference’ (Frisby, 1987: 423), the emphasis on aesthetics (see Böhringer, 1984;
Hübner-Funk, 1984), and his leveling down of society to culture; and how to
account for, offer counterweight to, the postmodernist appropriation of his
sociology. This may prove a difficult endeavor, given Simmel’s preoccupation to
lay bare the non-causal sense of society’s totality through an analysis of its
multiplicities, his preoccupation with the forms of social life, and, above all (in
light of today’s plurality of lifeworlds), his metaphysical contentions, which, by his
own premises, are not just hypothetical statements, but appeal to the ‘presupposi-
tions of knowledge as such’ (‘Voraussetzungen des Erkennens überhaupt’, Simmel,
1989: 9).
However, postmodern interpretations of Simmel will have to come to
terms with the remaining persistence of the other sociological classics as well as
with (the interpretations of) Simmel’s notion of modernity. With regard to the
study of money, this especially calls for a clarification of Simmel’s analysis vis-à-vis

the study of money from a materialist (Marx), multi-causal (Weber) and socio-
logistic (Durkheim) perspective. Whatever the shortcomings of the perspectives of
these theorists may be, each of them, and unlike Simmel’s, has provided a
yardstick by which the empirical facts of social life can be systematically ordered
with an encompassing but differentiating social theory. With their flight into
aesthetic prose and pose, postmodern theories, however, essentially refuse to
aspire any longer to this conception of theoretical access to the world. It is the
tragedy of their fate that they are nevertheless confronted with their modernist
counterparts and the extent to which the latter rely on the classics as con-
temporaries. Postmodern sociologist thereby will have to address the criticism that
they obscure rather than clarify complex societies and prevent an insightful
sociological understanding, for instance of the money theme. Ironically, then,
given the postmodern appropriation of Simmel, the first sociologist of modernity
may well become the first to be judged by an evaluation of its most relentless
critics.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Eve Darian-Smith, Donald Levine, Gary Marx, Leonard Pinto and anonymous reviewers
for helpful comments on a previous draft.
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Mathieu Deflem is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. His research
areas include law and social control, comparative-historical sociology and sociological theory. Most
distinctly inspired by the sociology of Émile Durkheim, Deflem’s published writings include discussions
and applications of the theoretical contributions of Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton, Ferdinand
Tönnies and Jürgen Habermas. Deflem is editor of Habermas, Modernity and Law (1996) and maintains
the website www.habermasonline.org. A Weberian analysis on the history of international police
cooperation is published as Policing World Society (2002). Current research focuses on the policing
dimensions of counter-terrorism. Deflem has been elected to a two-year term as Council member of the
Theory section of the American Sociological Association.
Address: Mathieu Deflem, University of South Carolina, Department of Sociology, Columbia, SC 29208,
USA. [email: Deflem@gwm.sc.edu]


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The Sociology of the Sociology of Money : Simmel and the Contemporary

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The Sociology of the Sociology of Money

MATHIEU DEFLEM University of South Carolina

ABSTRACT I offer a discussion of Simmel’s Philosophy of Money in comparison

KEYWORDS Durkheim, Marx, modernity, money, Simmel, sociological theory,

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Simmel on Sociology, Money, Individual and

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Money and the Photography of Society

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The Sociological Trinity on Money: Elements of

Marx: Money and the Contradictions of Capitalism

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Unmasking this fetishism, Marx’s historical materialism unveiled that a com-

Weber: Money and the Rationalization of Society

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Durkheim: Money and the Morality of the Social Order

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Simmel versus the Trinity: A Stranger among the

The Age of Sociology

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DEFLEM THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF MONEY 79

Simmel and Marx

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Simmel and Weber

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Simmel and Durkheim

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Simmel and the Prospects of a Sociology of

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Simmel’s (Lack of) Influence in Sociology

DEFLEM THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF MONEY 85

Past, Present and Future of the Sociology of Money

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Simmel and the Quest for Sociological Theory

DEFLEM THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF MONEY 87

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