CRACK CAPITALISM

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Doing dissolves the
homogenisation of time.
1. CLOCK-TIME IS IN CRISIS.
Abstract labour is inseparable from abstract time. The crisis of
abstract labour is also the crisis of abstract time. At one level, it
is a permanent crisis: we are the permanent crisis of the time of
abstract labour, with our refusals, our passions, our intensities.
Doing-time exists in the form of clock-time, but it also exists
against and beyond that time. The transformation of the struggle
against time into a struggle about time, noted by Thompson, was
never complete. Trade unions started to fight over the length of
the working day, but the struggle over punctuality and, above
all, over the porosity of the working day is a struggle that is
inseparable from the imposition of capitalist labour. Those paid
to spend their days working for another always try to find ways
of imposing their own rhythm, to create spaces for dreaming,
for talking to their friends, for having a smoke or a bite to eat,
whatever. Some of this is reflected in trade union disputes (over
the length of tea or coffee breaks, for example), but much of
it is fought at an individual or collective level that depends on
being invisible to be effective. An important aspect of capitalist
management is to close these moments created by the workers.
The permanent crisis of clock-time is not just limited to the
workplace, of course. Our lives, our passions, the way we relate
to friends: all are bound up with lived time, doing-time, the
silent daily struggle for other ways of living, other ways of
doing and relating.
But is there more than a permanent crisis of clock-time, more
than a chronic incompleteness in the acceptance of capitalist
rhythms ? Can we say that there is now an intensification of the
crisis of clock-time?
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