CRACK CAPITALISM

Thompson, as we have seen, shows how the struggle to
establish capitalism involved a long struggle to impose a new
concept of time. Class struggle was the struggle between two
times, between two concepts and practices of time: the one
centred on us, our doing, our living, and the other a quantitative,
measured, objective time that abstracts completely from our lives
and concerns. Thompson argues that, as capitalism becomes
established, at least in the more 'advanced' countries, there
is a widespread internalisation of abstract time, that struggle
becomes focused on quantitative issues of time rather than on
the quality of time itself. However, after emphasising the role of
Puritanism in imposing the internalisation of clock-time, he asks:
If Puritanism was a necessary part of the work-ethos which enabled the
industrialised world to break out of the poverty-stricken economies of
the past, will the Puritan evaluation of time begin to decompose as the
pressures of poverty relax? Is it decomposing already? Will men begin to
lose that restless urgency, that desire to consume time purposively, which
most people carry just as they carry a watch on their wrists? 1[1967: 95)
And he continues: 'But if the purposive notation of time-use
becomes less compulsive, then men might have to re-Iearn some
of the arts of living lost in the industrial revolution: how to
fill the interstices of their days with enriched, more leisurely,
personal and social relations; how to break down once more
the barriers between work and life' (ibid.).
Is there, then, a decomposition of clock-time? If so, why? Is it
because of a relaxation of the pressures of poverty, as Thompson
suggests, or some other reason? What would a decomposition
of clock-time mean? Thompson suggests that a central element
would be a breaking down of the barriers between work and
life. This, however, could be seen in quite a different sense,
as the extension of the dominion of clock-time. In this sense,
Virno, Hardt and Negri argue that there is an extension of the
discipline of labour time to the whole 24 hours of the day: 'For
the post-Fordist multitude every qualitative difference between
labour time and non-labour time falls short.'l Where does that
leave us?
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