SOC 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: History Of The Jews In Europe, Nell Irvin Painter, Exchange Interaction
Document Summary
For simmel every interaction )a performance, a conversation, or even a romantic affair) could be understood as a for of exchange in which each participant gives the other more than he himself possessed (ibid. Simmel focuses on the nature of economic exchange, particularly as it relates to the creation of value. What separates specifically economic forms of exchange from more general exchange interaction is sacrifice. For simmel, the measure of sacrifice necessary to attain goods or goals is the source of their economic value. Value, then, is always subjective and relative: determined by the interaction at hand in which actors weigh their desire for th goods in question against the amount of sacrifice required to attain them. Value is created out if the distance that separates desire from its satisfaction and the willingness to sacrifice something in order to overcome that distance. Comparison of simmel and marx on the issue of economic value table 6. 2.
