The Politics of Time: Gaining Control in the Age of Uncertainty

by Guy Standing

'Guy Standing's books have, over the years, pieced together a necessary political and intellectual agenda ... His Politics of Time is a splendid and timely addition to this body of important work' Yanis VaroufakisTime has always been political. Throughout history, how we use our time has been defined and controlled by the powerful, and today is no exception. But we can reclaim control, and in this book, the pioneering economist Guy Standing shows us how.The ancient Greeks organised time into five work, labour, recreation, leisure and contemplation. Labour was onerous, whereas leisure was schole, and included participation in public life and lifelong education. Since the industrial revolution, our time has been shaped by capitalism, our jobs are supposed to provide all meaning in life, our time outside labour is considered simply 'time off', and politicians prioritise jobs above all other aspects of a good life.Today, we are experiencing the age of chronic uncertainty. Mental illness is on the rise, some people are experiencing more time freedom while many others are having more and more of their time stolen from them, particularly the vulnerable and those in the precariat.But there is a way forward. We can create a new politics of time, one that liberates us and helps save the planet, through strengthening real leisure and working together through commoning. We can retake control of our time, but we must do it together.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Sociology

432 pages, Hardcover

Published October 26, 2023

About the author

Guy Standing is a British professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and co-founder of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN).

Standing has written widely in the areas of labour economics, labour market policy, unemployment, labour market flexibility, structural adjustment policies and social protection. His recent work has concerned the emerging precariat class and the need to move towards unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars!

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Standing is usually good value and this book is no exception, although much of what appears in here will be familiar to those who have read much of his work elsewhere. He claims that there are three time regimes we have lived under, agrarian (primarily based on agriculture), industrial (manufacturing in factories) and tertiary (based on services).

At one point he talks about the draconian Vagabond Acts, the most severe was passed in 1547, and mandated that for a first offence a person was to be branded with a V and subjected to two years of forced labour, and a second offence was punished by death. Over 100,000 were hanged in the space of a few years. “Most of the population was forced to ‘want’ labour. Wanting labour was clearly not a natural human impulse.”

“At all stages, the upper classes used the legal system to penalize the poor who were not doing labour and justified these penalties in moral terms, with the enthusiastic backing of established religion, always the servant of the state.”

It’s interesting to see how so many of these ideas have been preserved and refined by those in power, particularly through mainstream media and politics and utilised into forever more inventive and draconian tools and measures used against the poor to shame and humiliate them into enduring harsh and hugely imbalanced circumstances.

Elsewhere he goes through Taylorism, Fordism and Toyotism. He believes that Shenzhen is the first city which became the closest to becoming a “social factory” by 2022 there was nearly 5 million surveillance cameras. The so called “Shenzhenism” has been given the chilling label – “Safe Cities” and the Golden Shield project run by the Chinese government with crucial help from corporate interests from the UK, US, Israel and elsewhere. He describes it as “the panopticon state operating at full throttle.”

So there’s a lot of good stuff in here, though much of it he has covered previously in some of his other work, but still this makes for very interesting reading and this is as good a place as any to start for those who have never come across Standing before.

[melancholinary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not entirely convinced by Standing’s proposition (or even theory) regarding time and its relationship with labour. In the capitalist world, time is indeed money, and in this context, time is not distributed as widely as money. While there is nothing particularly groundbreaking in Standing’s explanation of time and labour, what I find interesting is his distinction between work and labour. For Standing, labour refers to work undertaken for wages, whereas work can be carried out for pleasure and applied to the practice of communing. This distinction allows for the possibility of a new politics of time, where individuals voluntarily and willingly engage in work for communal purposes (drawing inspiration from the ancient Greek concept of scholé, meaning leisure). It is, however, a rather utopian proposal for rethinking the relationship between work, commoning, and time. In this context, Standing also discusses (or theorises) what he calls tertiary time. Tertiary time is essentially akin to non-productive labour—time spent by workers on tasks that support their primary work but remain unpaid. This time is often taken from periods that would otherwise be used for recreation. In Standing’s utopian vision for 2030, tertiary time is entirely eliminated because the politics of time focuses on activities centred around commoning. This is where I find myself unconvinced.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book on the notion that we have had various versions of society based in different ways of using time. Perhaps a little too UK centric for my liking. The last section concerns an imagined utopian United Kingdom.

[mk.miles_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing read if you've read Standing's work before.

I had previously enjoyed Guy's other work on Universal Basic Income, with it being pretty swift and pretty convincing.

While this book starts out well, and charts an interesting history of commoning, it soon becomes a statistics-fest full of depressing facts you already sort of know anyway.

His central thesis is essentially the same - that the growth of the 'precariat' is a huge problem. I'd like to say that reframing this in terms of the time burden gave this a novel feel, and while it did initially, it soon began to drag.

Guy basically regurgitates the conclusion I already bought from his previous book, just in a different way. This might be a good read if you've never heard of Guy Standing before, but even then, I'd recommend his Basic Income book over this.

[Miguel Hernandez Littlewood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guy Standing offers a useful paradigm to understand today's challenges around inequality, cohesion, and sustainability. Suprinsingly, this is one that is close to everyone's reality: the use of time and our freedom to decide how to use it.

Standing masterfully compiles an outline of different time regimes and explains the structural and political impact on our understanding and evaluation of time. His main argument: a return to a model that prioritises diversifying the use of time beyond labour for the benefit of the community, the commons, the environment, and the most vulnerable.

In a time in which more progressive forces struggle to offer hope for the future, Standing's proposed solutions could be of some inspiration.

[Kanako Okiron · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember a lot about this book - I started reading it in February (Gosh!) but I agreed a lot with Standing's points in regards to working and labour. Especially in my current setting of employment, thinking of how time works is a fascinating thing. What role does time play in all of this? My sister said something particularly tongue-in-cheek when we were waiting for the SEP (Socialist Equality Party) to arrive at Brunetti's - "After all, being on time is a capitalist construct". It is, though! After much ado waiting, we launched into a two-hour long conversation about the government, the upcoming election, and the SEP's role in it. Not once was time mentioned.

[Zhi Yan Jin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enlightening

[bookinglibrarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are so many gems here, and I particularly appreciated the view from the a possible future that embraces work (not jobs), leisure, creativity and schole.