Money functions as magic, making desire immediately effective

Evidence

Aesthetic contemplation, which is possible for any object and only especially easy for the beautiful, most thoroughly closes the gap between the self and the object. It allows as easy, effortless, and harmonious formation of the image of the object as if this image were determined only by the nature of the self. Hence the sense of liberation which accompanies an aesthetic mood; it is characterized by emancipation from the stuffy dull pressure of life, and the expansion of the self with joy and freedom into the objects whose reality would otherwise violate it. Such is the psychological tone of joy in the mere possession of money. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 451 (#expands, via linked claim)

Magic is utterly untrue, yet in it domination is not yet negated by transforming itself into the pure truth and acting as the very ground of the world that has become subject to it. The magician imitates demons; in order to frighten them or to appease them, he behaves frighteningly or makes gestures of appeasement. … The magician never interprets himself as the image of the invisible power; yet this is the very image in which man attains to the identity of self that cannot disappear through identification with another, but takes possession of itself once and for all as an impenetrable mask. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

I do not accept the main framework of their analyses. Neither power nor language is on a par with money or other disembedding mechanisms. Power and the use of language are intrinsic features of social action on a very general level, not specific social forms. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 66 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Money makes desire instantly operative, dissolving the technical distance to objects; Both aesthetic mood and money-possession liberate the self from resistant reality — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 451; Magic achieves domination through mimetic imitation, not through claiming absolute truth — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Both aesthetic mood and money-possession liberate the self from resistant reality #expands (0.92) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 451
• Magic achieves domination through mimetic imitation, not through claiming absolute truth #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 37
• Power and language are not disembedding mechanisms like money #qualifies (0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 66