Time and Speed in the Social Universe of Capital

Abstract

In contemporary society it appears that speed and the ‘tyranny of time’ (Reeves, 1999) are forces gathering increasing strength in all areas of social life. Matthews (1999) notes that, subjectively, we experience this as a sense of acceleration in our daily lives (p. 44). These effects, notes Luke (1998), are ‘global in their scope and impact’ (p. 163). The speed of life has increased throughout society: objectively, as all social processes are subject to an increasing ‘Need For Speed’ (Matthews, 1999) as we try to ‘save time’, and subjectively, as we experience the sensation of speed in social life (Gleick, 1999). For Luke, the speed of life in contemporary society has now reached such intensity that it ‘recreates the world as humans have not known it’ (1998, p. 165). Davis and Meyer (1998) assure us that we are not imagining things when we experience life as ‘blur’ — the sum of electronic connectivity, speed and intangibles, which are the ‘derivatives of time, space and mass’ (p. 6). These three phenomena in combination are inexorably ‘blurring the rules and redefining our businesses and our lives’ (ibid.).

Economy of time, to this all economy ultimately reduces itself. (Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858, p. 173)