Georg Simmel’s group expansion

a visionary path to an understanding of globalisation

Abstract

Georg Simmel triggers off much more interest among sociological scholars today than he previously did. Therefore I believe an interesting question to ask is: why does Simmel re-earn an academic legitimacy in the current social context? I will here assume that Simmel’s analysis of “group expansion” and “enlarged social circles” can be put together with the notion of “globalization” as a topical explanation of today’s social world. To the purpose of analyzing potential connections, I will mainly focus on the article entitled “Group expansion and the development of Individuality” (Simmel 1971, 251-293) and I will indulge myself in a comparative study between concepts developed by Simmel such as “the transformation of social bonds”, the “collective individuality”, the “individuation of the economic sphere”, and empiric observations on globalization in the 21st century.