It thereby comes to pass that while population is packed ever more closely
together in the urban environment, the atomization of social life proceeds
apace. In its most fundamental aspect, this often noticed phenomenon can
be explained only by the development of market relations as the substitute
for individual and community relations. The social structure, build
upon the market, is such that relations between individuals and social
groups do not take place directly, as in cooperative human encounters,
but through the market as relations of purchase and sale (192).
The function of the family as a cooperative enterprise pursuing the
joint production of a way of life is brought to an end, and with this its
other functions are progressively weakened (192).