{"id":48944,"date":"2023-12-22T17:51:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T17:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/?p=48944"},"modified":"2024-02-21T23:20:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-21T23:20:37","slug":"time-of-your-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/time-of-your-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Time of your life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having free time need not require great wealth \u2013 Guy Standing\u2019s <\/span>The<\/span><\/i> Politics of Time <\/span><\/i>explains why work is overvalued.<\/span><\/p>\n

Review by Alex Kozul-Wright.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The<\/span><\/i> Politics of Time<\/span><\/i> is not another contribution to the cult of positive thinking. It avoids any tips to help improve your productivity. Rather, it seeks to illustrate how man\u2019s evolving relationship with time explains the current cluster of global crises (poly crisis), and what can be done to address it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Emeritus Professor at the University of London, Guy Standing, man\u2019s perception of time is framed by the dominant mode of production into which he is born; namely agricultural, industrial and tertiary (service-sector oriented).<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing begins with a potted history of time management according to the ancient Greeks. Fortunate citizens, as opposed to hapless slaves, made a notable distinction between work and leisure. The former entailed, among other tasks, military training and jury service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Leisure, or <\/span>schole<\/span><\/i>, conveyed a combination of civic engagement and self-reflection. Unrelated to the concept of passive entertainment, <\/span>schole<\/span><\/i> referred to exchanging ideas at the agora (public forum) as a basis for political action.<\/span><\/p>\n

Standing suggests a revival of <\/span>schole<\/span><\/i> and deliberative democracy, before next switching geographical focus and social allegiance with a whistle-stop tour of mediaeval Britain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On his reading, peasant society in the agricultural era was anchored around the \u201ccommons\u201d. People had access to, and joint use, of local common land and the rhythm of agrarian society was based on the weather and seasonal festivals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea of daily work, meanwhile, was hazy, and notions of time were based on an inter-dependency between nature and indigenous knowledge. With the evolution of late feudal society, however, barons began altering social relations by expropriating natural resources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[Mediaeval] Britons had access to, and joint use, of local common land and the rhythm of agrarian society was based on the weather and seasonal festivals.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enclosing public land, which gathered speed in the late-sixteenth century, involved the removal of community rights over parish commons. For Standing, enclosure led to a \u201crentier economy\u201d, where income could be generated through asset ownership rather than work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing numbers of commoners became tenant farmers to pay rent to landlords, and labouring to survive became entrenched. Fast forward several centuries and, by way of the clock and steam engine, we get to Richard Arkwright\u2019s textile factory in Cromford, Defbyshire.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the late 1700s, Arkwright introduced the \u201cstandardisation of work based on clocks\u201d. Labourers were steered to adapt their lifestyles around the factory, as time itself became a commodity \u2013 in exchange for money, workers gave up control of their time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next two centuries, employer-led campaigns succeeded in defining labour as virtuous. Standing laments that industrial workers adopted this view too, championing \u201cthe dignity of labour\u201d, and elevating jobs as sacrosanct.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following World War 2, full-employment became the dominant policy mantra in advanced economies. Crucially, unpaid care work became delegitimised during this period, while leisure was relegated to time spent not labouring \u2013 restyled as shopping and watching TV.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ubiquitous internet connectivity means that no time of day remains our own, particularly in the service sector which constitutes 79% of UK output.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, we arrive at the tertiary age, our current system of time management. Tertiary time owes its heritage to industrial-era shifts (the notion of 9-to-5), but also by a \u201cblurring of time uses\u2026 and a barrage of demands at any given moment\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ubiquitous internet connectivity means that no time of day remains our own, particularly in the service sector which constitutes 79% of UK output. These developments have also precipitated app-mediated labour, often characterised by zero-hours contracts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With these flexible working arrangements, typified by non-unionised workforces, no minimum wage and the absence of a work space, are more commonly observed among people at low ends of the income spectrum \u2013 the precariat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While, Uber and Deliveroo purport to address unemployment concerns, a closer look reveals their propensity to exacerbate inequality. On top of wages, \u201celites and full-time salaried professionals benefit from rental income and private pensions,\u201d says Standing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Labour no longer offers a road to riches for the precariat. Meanwhile, workers across all social groups today devote less time to <\/span>schole<\/span><\/i> \u2013 to quiet reflection and debate. In a world where every second counts, these pursuits are disparaged as time wasting.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Standing\u2019s view, declining leisure is reflected in waning election turnouts, and community engagement more generally. He underscores the importance of time to engage with politics and society, and that \u201cthe loss of civics has led to a rise in [political] charlatanism.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Standing, tertiary capitalism is teetering on a knife edge, generating ever more inequality and social instability. He even contends that we face a 1930s-style crossroads.<\/span> On this point he gets carried away, projecting a global slump that isn\u2019t borne out by the data.<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, this is the backdrop against which Standing presents his radically simple solution: reduce the time we spend labouring, \u201cit\u2019s time to remove jobs from their ideological pedestal,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

In place of labour, he advocates for a universal basic income (UBI), which he insists would grant people \u201cfinancial independence and control over their time,\u201d including through more rewarding jobs. He also calls for the end of stigmatising means-tested benefits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trials with guaranteed universal basic income (UBI) back his claim. In Hudson, New York, unemployment among low-income individuals given $500 a month for five years <\/span>fell<\/span><\/i> by 50%. Recipients also reported lower debt burdens and improved family relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Standing\u2019s vision, a UBI could be financed through \u201ceco-fiscal policy\u201d which would tax activities polluting \u201chumanity\u2019s commons\u201d \u2013 the air, land and sea. This would redress both ecological decay and the excesses of rentier capitalism, as rich people tend to pollute more.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Drawing in taxes on all forms of commons expropriation \u2013 physical, financial and intellectual property \u2013 would generate \u201chundreds of billions\u201d in additional funding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the UK, for instance, recycling a levy of \u00a3100 per cubic tonne of carbon emissions would be enough to finance a rebate of \u00a332 a week to the average household. \u201cHardly adequate,\u201d but a start towards funding a UBI, referred to as a \u201ccommon dividend.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As tertiary capitalism is designed to benefit rentiers, drawing in taxes on all forms of commons expropriation \u2013 physical, financial and intellectual property \u2013 would generate \u201chundreds of billions\u201d in additional funding, according to Standing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While many may question the viability of his claims, Standing\u2019s attempt to address numerous issues in a single charter is laudable; UBI would remunerate care work, slow the pace of environmental collapse and facilitate more time for local politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Granted, it may be a leap to assume that people would spend their free time more wisely, but <\/span>The Politics of Time<\/span><\/i> offers progressive politics a revived purpose: not to surrender to \u201cnatural\u201d economic forces, but to pursue security in the face of widespread uncertainty.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having free time need not require great wealth \u2013 Guy Standing\u2019s The Politics of Time explains why work is overvalued. Review by Alex Kozul-Wright. The Politics of Time is not … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1549,"featured_media":48945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,1,1738],"tags":[2232,152,209,2547,2273,1189,2050],"class_list":["post-48944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-uncategorized","category-work","tag-alexander-kozul-wright","tag-capitalism","tag-commons","tag-dec-2023","tag-guy-standing","tag-labour","tag-leisure"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1549"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themintmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}