‘I wish I had more time to do it’. This is an often-quoted line. The one thing that people long for is time. I have heard this so often that it has made me question the meaning of time in human lives. How is it that people ‘run out’ of time? Is this contemporary mode of ‘calculating’ time the singular way that time has been defined across time and cultures? In modern societies, time is commonly linked to the ideas of productivity and efficiency. Has this always been the case? These are some of the questions that I seek answers to in this piece.
In his ethnographic study of the Nuers of southern Sudan, British anthropologist E. E. Evans- Pritchard had found out that the Nuers they think of time in two ways: ecological and structural. In describing Nuer concepts of time we may distinguish those that are mainly reflections of their relations to environment, which in a broad sense we may call ‘ecological time’, and are reflections of their relations to one another in the social which we may describe as ‘structural time’ (Evans-Pritchard 1939: 189).[i]
Thus, essentially there has been no fixed way in which time has been seen in society. The Nuers, for instance, do not use the clock system to mark their time but instead used seasons and social relationships to do so. Like Evans-Pritchard, E. P. Thompson too has argued that in many ‘traditional’ societies, the measurement of time is usually related to familiar processes in the cycle of work or domestic chores at different points of history. The Nandis of East Africa, for example, measure time in terms of ‘domestic’ activities like cattle grazing, making rice, and so on (Thompson 1967).[ii]
It is not just the Nuer or the Nandis. Even in ‘modern’ societies, many people from earlier generations do not necessarily use dates to keep track of time. My grandmother, for instance, did not remember the exact birth dates of her children. She used to remember them in terms of the months of the Assamese calendar – he was born in ‘Bohag’ (April), she was born in ‘Magh’ (January), and so on.
Thus throughout history and across societies, people have measured time differently – according to household work or seasons. There had been no standardized way of defining time until capitalism changed that forever. Both sociologists and economists have argued that the concept of time, as we know today, is a capitalist and an industrial product.
Thompson, for instance, argues that it was industrial capitalism that changed how people measure time. The popularity and spread of the clock across the world was one of the reasons why time became standardized. The beginning of railways also made it necessary for time to be standardized across the world. The concept of time changed – it was no longer local and diverse.[iii]
Capitalism has thrived on this standardization of time. The installation of assembly-line production by Henry Ford in 1913 was a landmark moment, as it reduced the time taken to make an automobile from 12 to under 3 hours.[iv] The idea was to increase worker productivity and reduce the time taken to manufacture products.
Karl Marx had argued that capitalism thrives on these ideas of increasing productivity and efficiency. While reducing time to get work done, capitalists want the working-day to be extended (Marx 1867).[v] The function of time is a measure of value. By making use of standardized working-days that could be anywhere between 8-12 hours, capitalism helped ‘time become money’. Time is no longer passed but ‘spent’ (Thompson 1967).
Questions of time, productivity, and generating revenue continue to be at the centre of debates during the COVID-19 pandemic. With rising cases of infected people, most countries have enforced lockdowns. While some parts of the economy like IT companies, universities, and media houses are continuing their work online, many factories and companies had to be temporarily shut. But be it the IT companies, universities or factories, what everyone is worried about is ‘loss of time, productivity and revenue’. Many countries like the United States of America (USA) were pondering on opening up their economies to cut down on losses.[vi]
This has led many people to question the system that is more concerned about productivity and ‘losing time’ rather than ensuring both safety and sustenance. Many are facing increasing issues of mental health because of extended periods of self-isolation and lockdown. The added pressure to perform and be ‘productive’ only adds to it. Marx had talked about the feeling of alienation that workers feel from other workers and themselves in the capitalistic system (Marx 1844).[vii] Perhaps there is no better way to describe the situation of people today – they feel alienated in their lives.
Thus the uniform and capitalist nature of time has changed how people perceive notions of productivity and efficiency. There has been a push towards increasing working hours and the emphasis on the idea that ‘time is money’. A sociological understanding of time, therefore, is incomplete without an understanding of how societies have changed economically and historically.
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[i] Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (1939). Nuer Time-Reckoning. Journal of the International African Institute. 12(2): 189-216. Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute.
[ii] Thompson, E.P. (1967). Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism. Past and Present. 38: 56-97. Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society.
[iii]https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/12/a-brief-economic-history-of-time/510566/, accessed on 7th May 2020.
[iv]https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000/The-assembly-line, accessed on 7th May 2020.
[v] Marx, Karl. (1867). [1887]. Das Kapital. Volume I. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
[vi]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52563577, accessed on 7th May 2020.
[vii] Marx, Karl. (1844) [1932] Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Moscow: Progress Publishers.