SOC 101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: The Sociological Imagination, Randall Collins, Georg Simmel

• School: Syracuse University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 101
• Professor: Jennifer Flad

Document Summary

An introduction to sociology in the global age. Example: georg simmel (1907) argued that money is crucial to the modern economy. Cash money allows people to be paid easily for their work and makes it just as easy for them to buy goods and services. However, money not only speeds up consumption but also allows people to consume more than they otherwise would. While a money economy creates problems, the sociological imagination allows us to see that credit nearly wrecked the american, and much of the global economy during the great recession. Money had dramatically increased with the expansion of credit for individuals in the form on mortgage loans, auto loans, and credit cards. People not only tended to spend all of the cash (including savings) they had on hand, but they were all going into more and more debt because loans were easy to obtain.