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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** Money in itself is not a relationship, commodified or otherwise, though it derives from relationships. Paper money is a symbol. It is used to represent and quantify the exchange values of tangible goods or services in a diversified economy, to overcome the limits of barter. As a symbol, money becomes abstracted from its relational context. It can be hoarded and transferred, developing its own laws of motion. Some people make money into a fetish and spend their lives in the service of its accumulation. At that point, if "relational" means mutual recognition and response, money is no longer relational. It is completely instrumental and impersonal, dehumanizing social life. Jeffrey Broadbent Associate Professor Department of Sociology Director of Graduate Studies in East Asian Studies 909 Social Science Building University of Minnesota 267 19th Ave. S. Minneapolis, Minnesota USA 55455 Tel. 612-624-1828 Fax. 612-624-7020 Email: [log in to unmask] -----Original Message----- From: Social Networks Discussion Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kerimcan Ozcan Sent: Monday, February 21, 2005 10:39 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Centrality --- a blog from Visible Path ***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.insna.org ***** On Mon, 21 Feb 2005, Blyden B. Potts wrote: > > Without relationships there is no money Without relationships there is hardly anything. So, this premise is a tautology. > the primary purpose of money is to create (exchange) relationships. Money doesn't have a purpose of itself. Humans use money. Humans' purpose in using money is not to create but rather facilitate or smooth out exchange relationships. People want to, and oftentimes can, create exchange relationship independent of and prior to money. > Money *IS* commodified social relationships. I hear echoes of Georg Simmel's Philosophy of Money here but what he said was that money commodifies and weakens all social relationships and thereby ushers in the Gesellschaft (vis-a-vis Gemeinschaft). This is a subtle but significant difference. Kerimcan Ozcan _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message. _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.insna.org). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.