SIMMEL: 'AU CONTRAIRE'

From another angle, Simmel's work shows how fragmented money can become, and perhaps he anticipated here the prevalence of credit and what Keynes termed 'financial circulation' (Cf Lord Skidelsky's 'The Return of the Master' in the Chapter "Keynes for Today").

'The contents of life—as they become more and more expressible in money

which is absolutely continuous, rhythmical and indifferent to any

distinctive form—are, at it were, split up into so many small parts; their

rounded totalities are so shattered that any arbitrary synthesis and

formation of them is possible. It is this process that provides the material

for modern individualism and the abundance of its products'.