The preeminent historical instance of the correlation between social expansion and the individuation of life contents and forms is provided by the emergence of the cash economy. The primitive economy engenders small, relatively insular economic circles; the difficulty of transportation alone restricts their perimeters, and it accordingly prevents the technology of the primitive economy from arriving at a significant degree of the differentiation and individualization of activities.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 663