Cash Rules Everything Around Me: Georg Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money

Georg Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money is a unique philosophical attempt to understand the complex ways in which money shapes modern social existence. In this seminal work, Simmel seeks to understand the social and psychological conditions of possibility for money while at the same time arguing that the pervasive monetization of valuation in turn conditions modern life. This chapter explores Simmel’s rich analysis of money as fundamentally a social interaction; the relation between desire, valuation, and economic exchange; and the paramount significance of social trust for the efficacy of money. On the basis of this exploration, the chapter further examines how money serves as an optic for a penetrating analysis of the contradictions of modern life, where money has arguably attained an historically unprecedented “divine” status.