Nietzsche’s money

Abstract

Although Nietzsche rarely features in discussions of money, he offered important insights into such matters as the relationship between the money economy and the permanent decadence of modernity, money’s impact on social hierarchy and individualism and the moral economy of debt. His remarks on these themes are closely connected to two of his best known, but controversial, ideas: the eternal return and the Übermensch. In this paper, I explore how Nietzsche’s arguments, and these two concepts in particular, have been taken up by three thinkers who have made distinctive and original contributions to the sociological and philosophical understanding of money, credit and debt: Georg Simmel in The Philosophy of Money (1907), Walter Benjamin in ‘Capitalism as Religion’ (1921), and Norman Brown in Life Against Death (1959). Nietzsche’s ideas fulfil a pivotal role in each of these treatments of money: in particular, he informs Simmel’s exploration of the relationship between money, individualism and socialism; Benjamin’s examination of the ‘guilt history’ of modern capitalism and its moral economy of debt; and, finally, Brown’s explorations of the roots and consequences of our neurotic money complex. Each of these thinkers puts a different complexion on Nietzsche’s own thoughts regarding money, as well as his broader philosophy. Nevertheless, he provides all three thinkers with a sharply critical perspective on the idea that money’s expansion in the modern world reflects the individual’s liberation from traditional social ties and ancient moral bonds.

Simmel’s reading of Nietzsche: The promise of “philosophical sociology”

“…Nobility, for Simmel (1986), should be then not taken literally, or even in socio-historical terms, but as a “special value-quality of the soul” (p. 179), perhaps a “nobility of mind” as Dodd (2013: 49) suggests. Simmel’s reworking of this concept has been discussed in terms of his intellectual debt to Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart (see Lichtblau, 1984; Vandenberghe, 2010: 22), but it is less clear what is at stake here in sociological terms.…”

“…The significance of this ideal has been widely recognized, particularly in relation to Simmel's sociological treatment of distance (see Aschheim, 1992: 42;Liebersohn, 1988: 141;Lichtblau, 1984: 232) and forms of modern individualism in the sphere of mature money economy (see Dodd, 2013). In the context of Simmel's intellectual biography, Vornehmheit plays a central role in Simmel's (1897) defence of the Nietzschean philosophy as an inherently "moral" project (p. 1648), against predominantly negative responses of his own intellectual circle.…”

“…Among various voices that acknowledge Simmel's debt to the Nietzschean philosophy (Aschheim, 1992: 42, Frisby, 1985: 35, Liebersohn, 1988: 141-142, Lukács, 1980[1962: 442; Stauth andTurner, 1988: 206, Weinstein andWeinstein, 1993: 171-185), Levine (2012: 31) has most recently placed Simmel's engagement with Nietzsche alongside his interest in Goethe: both philosophers represent "the principle of Life" in Simmel's broader socio-metaphysical project. Yet only few investigations offer a more sustained insight into the recurring presence of Nietzsche within Simmel's social theory (see exceptions: Button, 2012;Dodd, 2013;Lichtblau, 1984). As Weinstein and Weinstein (1993: 179) suggest, the multitude of threads one can follow in tracing Simmel's Nietzsche(s) makes it impossible to ever draw a comprehensive picture of this complex affinity.…”

Market Collaboration: Finance, Culture, and Ethnography after Neoliberalism

“…As the popular success of David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years ( ) suggests, the debt paradigm is now pervasive throughout the financial world. The rethinking of economies as founded on relations of debt rather than capital (and, in some cases, also on reciprocity, altruism, affect, and the like), as well as the return to earlier generations of foundational anthropological theories of debt economies for new inspiration, is now attracting considerable attention among anthropologists and social theorists as well (Dodd ; High ; Riles ; Roitman ; Sawyer and Gomez ).…”

In Search of the Wanderer and Free Spirits: The Ascetic Absence of Nietzsche in American Sociology

“…In the rare cases where Nietzsche is given consideration within sociology, it usually entails a brief mention in passing about his relative influence upon certain classical social theorists like Max Weber or Georg Simmel (Dodd, 2012). This kind of treatment relegates Nietzsche to a small corner of our field as a mere footnote, having significance only for historians of social thought.…”