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A. THE AUTHOR AND THE CONTEXT
Georg Simmel (1858-1918) published his journal article on competition in 1903, one year before Max Weber began to publish his ideas on the religious components of modern rational capitalism. Competition "is a form of struggle fought by means of objective performances, to the advantage of a third person" (Simmel 1903a:1021), that third person usually being the customer. However, it is not as simple a phenomenon as this short definition by Simmel suggests. Competition can be discussed from many different points of view. In doing that, Simmel presents it as an intricate and fascinating subject.
There is, to begin with, the evolutionist perspective which ties competition to modernity.
What we are dealing with here are stages of evolution in which the absolute competition of the struggle for existence among animals changes gradually toward relative competition. This means that slowly those frictions and rigid forms of wasting energy are excluded from the process because they are not needed in competition. (1903a:1018)
In the human past, the emphasis was more toward solidarity. But
the last few centuries have, on the one hand, given to objective interests and material culture a power and independence previously unheard of; on the other hand . . . they have given an incredible depth to the subjectivity of the self. . . . (1903a:1023)
As a result "competition presents itself as one of the decisive traits in modern life" (1903a:1023).
Another perspective from which Simmel looks at competition is the tension between individualism and collectivism. A decade before his book on money ([1900] 1907) Simmel published On Social Differentiation (Simmel 1890) to clarify his notion of differentiation and individualization. Simmel does not associate the processes of differentiation exclusively with the division of labour and the specialization of occupations. Rather, the thought of individualization emerges here as an evolutionary tendency that is inherent in the mutual exchange among persons.
What is more, with such a differentiation of the social group there will be a growing compulsion and inclination to go beyond its original boundaries in terms of spatial, economic, and mental relationships, and to place next to the initial centripetal character of the single group, with growing individuality and the repulsion of its elements which thereby occurs, a...