Thursday, October 15, 2020

MoneyWisdom #495

 "If it is true, as Simmel suggests, that the predominant style of art influences our way of viewing nature, then the quantitative structure of monetary relations, which is superimposed upon qualitative actuality, must greatly influence our viewing of it. The calculating intellect which operates through the money economy receives back from that same money economy some of the mental characteristics in terms of which it dominates modern life. There is an analogy between the mentality which the money economy engenders and the conviction that nothing is real in any ultimate sense if it cannot be measured. This objective and impersonal character of money, indeed its very lack of character, is important in the development of individuality. Money acts, as it were, in a double role: On the one hand it negates the subjective, the unique and qualitative factors, on the other it allows the individual to realize his personal ends by impersonal means."

S. Herbert Frankel Money: Two Philosophies - The Conflict of Trust and Authority (1977) p.25