Philosophy of Money
Simmel, G. (1900), Philosophie des Geldes, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.
The Philosophy of Money: Georg Simmel’s Masterpiece and Its Relevance Today
Georg Simmel’s Philosophie des Geldes (1900) is a profound and interdisciplinary exploration of money. Far beyond economic theory, Simmel treats money as a cultural, philosophical, psychological, and sociological phenomenon—a perspective through which we can understand modern life, value, freedom, alienation, and identity.
Simmel begins by distinguishing two fundamental ways we experience the world: being and value. While science concerns itself with laws, facts, and objective reality, value emerges from subjective relationships—through judgment, desire, and distance. Value is not a property of things but a function of how we relate to them. An object becomes valuable not because of its intrinsic traits, but because it lies at the right distance: desirable yet not immediately accessible.
Money as Objectified Value
Economic value, in this framework, is just one form of valuation—subjective in origin but stabilized intersubjectively through culture and institutions. Money, then, is not a substance of value but its symbolic medium. It represents abstraction, equivalence, and distance: it allows us to measure, compare, and exchange things that are otherwise incomparable. In doing so, money also enables the transformation of subjective desire into objective social structures.
Simmel shows how value emerges through resistance. The more we have to wait, sacrifice, or strive for an object, the more we perceive it as valuable. Money formalizes this principle: it introduces symbolic distance and effort into exchange, and solidifies the objectivity of values through market relations. Like language, money objectifies our inner experiences and reshapes how we relate to the world—and to ourselves.
Money, Freedom, and Alienation
Paradoxically, money both liberates and alienates. It gives individuals autonomy by detaching them from traditional bonds (class, family, occupation), enabling personal freedom and mobility. At the same time, it renders social life impersonal, rationalized, and abstract. Human relations become mediated by contracts, prices, and formal equivalence.
Simmel argues that modern life is marked by a shift from qualitative to quantitative evaluation. Emotional, ethical, and aesthetic distinctions are flattened into monetary terms. In this way, money erodes the uniqueness of things and people, reducing them to units of economic value.
Yet this same abstraction also creates room for individuality. People are no longer tied to the roles assigned by birth or tradition. The division of labor, powered by monetary exchange, allows individuals to specialize, choose their affiliations, and develop distinct personalities—albeit within a system that remains structurally impersonal.
Money as Symbol and Social Force
Simmel calls money the purest tool: neutral, universal, indifferent to content. Its lack of intrinsic purpose makes it a mirror of human desires. Over time, people begin to pursue money as an end in itself, rather than as a means. This reversal of means and ends marks the pathologies of modern economic life: greed, hoarding, cynicism, and emotional detachment.
Money also reshapes ethical and legal systems. The ancient practice of Wergild (monetary compensation for loss of life) illustrates how human worth was once quantified. Though morally insufficient by modern standards, this system was a step toward formal justice. Today, the same tension remains: we use money to assess damages in legal systems, but recognize its limits in capturing human dignity.
Cultural Objectification and the Crisis of Meaning
In modernity, objective culture (books, machines, art, institutions) has outpaced subjective culture—the individual's ability to internalize and personalize cultural content. This gap leads to alienation. Just as industrial production fragments labor, money fragments identity. Individuals become detached from the cultural products they use and the labor they perform.
Money also amplifies the rhythmic disintegration of life. Traditional rhythms—harvest, rest, ritual—give way to constant activity enabled by artificial lighting, digital tools, and 24/7 commerce. Life becomes accelerated, restless, and psychologically strained. Money, as a fluid, abstract symbol, embodies this flux and instability.
The Ambivalence of Modern Individualism
For Simmel, the modern individual stands at the intersection of two forces: the expanding objectivity of culture (driven by money, science, and bureaucracy) and the desire for authentic self-expression. Money is central to this tension. It provides freedom from personal dependence, allowing one to change jobs, cities, and social circles. But it also contributes to social fragmentation, emotional blunting (the blasé attitude), and the commodification of all values.
Simmel's view is neither nostalgic nor utopian. He doesn’t call for the abolition of money, but rather diagnoses the spiritual and cultural costs of its dominance. Money is not evil—it’s a symptom and symbol of deeper historical shifts: from substance to relation, from essence to function, from community to contract.
Why Simmel Still Matters
In today’s world of financialization, digital currencies, and platform capitalism, Simmel’s insights are more relevant than ever. He understood that money is not just about purchasing power—it’s about how we structure our lives, assign meaning, and relate to others. From discussions of AI and automation to debates about universal basic income and data commodification, the Philosophy of Money remains a foundational text for navigating the modern condition.
Simmel’s enduring contribution lies in showing that value is not found, but made—through resistance, desire, effort, and interaction. And that money, as both symbol and system, remains the clearest expression of how we confront the tension between individuality and interdependence, freedom and structure, substance and abstraction.