Time, Work-Discipline And Industrial Capitalism

In Jeremy Rifkin’s book Time Wars includes the reading selection “The Efficient Society” he is analytical in his explanation of what is being considered to be an efficient society. In the critical analysis he details the time management scenarios that are addressed to make more efficient workers. Corporations need to produce more work from each of its workers and the way that the companies take the time to measure

Therefore, the work schedule of the majority of Americans is greatly time-consuming and restrictive in how their life is like. Employment is restrictive in the sense that it doesn’t allow for much free time for Americans to do things in their life how they would like. Hochschild states, “But without overstating the case, it seems true that capitalism is a cultural as well as an economic system and that the symbols and rituals of this cultural system compete with, however much they seem to serve, the symbols and rituals of community and family.” (Hochschild 187) Most Americans are employed around capitalistic ideas of efficiency. Employers require employees to commit long hours, days, and years of their life to working for them. Employers also seek maximum efficiency in the time that employees are working. This commitment that employees make to their employment takes away from things that they value as mentioned by Hochschild. Unfortunately, Americans are forced to deal with this because they want to establish economic stability for themselves. Furthermore, the work life of

Today, most people look to grow economically. With work days lasting anywhere from eight to twelve hours, we dedicate our time to making money. Time not doing a job is time without money. We recognize the importance in giving up our time so much that we came up with a standard social belief. Time is money.

Nowadays, as modern societies provide an almost fixed time-table for humans to operate in various fields, we have far less freedom regarding our natural and momentary impulses than in the past. In other words, "we are increasingly detaching ourselves from organic and functional periodicity which is dictated by nature, and replacing it by mechanical periodicity which is dictated by the schedule, the calender, and the clock"(Jackson, 1994). The influence of this modern style of living on our sense of time can be seen on our relationship to every object we interact including buildings and architectural works.

Time is a free force and is said to be eternal. Time is a concept that is said to be perceived by the individual. Time is what moves on, allowing one to grow and reach their peak and achieve happiness in life. Experience and knowledge allow us to transcend ourselves in a different time. Different people view time in different aspects, whether it truly exits, whether it is meaningless or whether it exits beyond our lives. In the novel Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, time is conceptualized as meaningless, while in Hemon’s article “If God Existed, He Would Be A Solid Midfielder”, time is posited as a “snapshot” that is meaningful and valuable.

This twofold conception of time dates back to the ancient Greece, as they had two different notions of time. Ancient Greeks called these two concepts Kairos and Chronos. In his work, Democracy’s Gift, Canadian Philosopher Mark Kingwell describes Chronos time as “everyday, (ii) profane, (iii) homogeneous, (iv) linear, (v) horizontal, and (vi) egalitarian” (12). It is the time that we measure, understand, and perceive as time. This time is the commonly accepted concept of time that we encounter in everyday life. In a sense, this is what Dick refers to as the ‘mundane time’ in his

In contrast, to Walker, Russell views leisure differently, he seems to conclude it as valuable work done out of the workplace. Productive leisure is considered to be inventive and effective. Using this method, people who work during their day off are often accused of being overworked. But some companies argue that it can be productive. For example, Google gives its employees 20 percent time during their workday to work on projects that they like (Walker 1). Some employees enjoy this time during the day. For example, the engineers love this innovative time; to think outside the box (Walker 1). In contrast, Tokumitsu, would propose that leisure in the workplace conceals the true meaning of work, and if people viewed work as work they and set limits to it. (Tokumitsu 7). In addition, Russell seems to accommodate the idea of productive leisure however, he would promote that productive leisure should be used outside the workplace. For example, he proposes that the leisure kind “invented theories, refined arts, and wrote books” (Russell 7). There are several different views on leisure, and how it should be spent, but ultimately the choice should be the

Whenever I think of working time, I always want to stay here and work for the U.S. because working time in America is clear and shorter than Korean working time. Honestly, I really don’t know about American’s average working time and its culture but I have always heard that most of the American professional jobs are done by 5 PM. In Korea, working overtime at night is very common and even people can’t get paid for working overtime. Most of Koreans work from 8 or 9 AM to 8 or 9 PM, about 10 hours a day.

One of the concepts that was discussed in this class was how we perceive time and the many ways that this concept varies in different places around the world. The way that time is perceived by an individual or a group of people is largely dependent on tradition and is influenced by those around us. In the United States, the way that we view our day does not change very much depending on where we live. We all wake up, go to work, eat, and go to bed around the same time each day no matter where we live in the country.

‘time itself’ in some strange way acceleratesis not new at all; it rather seems to

Throughout The Little Prince (1943), Antoine de Saint Exupéry gives the reader a look at how society views time. In particular, Saint Exupéry offers up a critique on how many individuals value saving time and efficiency over anything else. The titular character witnesses this first hand through his various interactions with grownups along his journey. He meets characters who are so enthralled with their tasks that they would not “waste time” to enjoy other things in life that may be more meaningful. Furthermore, the novella is able to convey the fact that society has become overly consumed with the pursuit of efficiency, although taking your time is often more rewarding than rushing in an attempt to save time.

Time: an abstract idea, but invented solely by man. Even though it is a product of our own creation, we either have too much of it on our hands, or are rapidly running out of it. It wasn’t until the Market Revolutions of the early 19th century that clocks were readily used, so what did people rely on before? Surely there must be some better solution than the 5-day 9am-5pm monotony that has existed for close to two centuries? However, through my personal experiences and the anecdotes of others, I have concluded that this current schedule is both optimal for human productivity, and it would be impossible to function outside of it.

Uncountable hours have been spent on searching for the best way to use the time we have on the Earth and to live our lives to the fullest. Nevertheless, it seems that no ones has found the perfect answer. Throughout The Little Prince (1943), Antoine de Saint Exupery gives the reader a look on how society views time. In particular, de Saint Exupery offers up a critique on how many individuals value saving time and efficiency over anything else. The Little Prince is able to see this first hand through his various interactions with grownups along his journey. The novella is able to convey the fact that society has become overly consumed with the pursuit of efficiency, while some people become enthralled with a task at hand, they would not “waste time” to enjoy other things in life that may be more meaningful. However, taking your time is often more rewarding than rushing in an attempt to save time.

There are two kinds of people in the work force. There are laborers and there are workers. The difference between these two types of people is that a worker enjoys his or her job while a laborer does not. To the laborer, his or her life is almost equivalent to a wage slave. For those laborers, there only escape is leisure time. This is essentially the opposite of their lives, a time where there is freedom and compulsion. To the worker, leisure time consist of enough rest so that they can do their jobs effectively. In the two ways that these two types of people enjoy their free time, how do we know which person spends their time better? I believe that a worker often spends his of her leisure time more productively than

At the beginning of this course leisure was a topic I did not give much thought to and I felt like I did not have the time to spare to put much thought into. To me, all leisure meant was having free time to do whatever it is that I wanted to do. But after analyzing my life I noticed that I had surrounded my life with solely work and school and my “free time” was anytime I spent watching television and anytime I slept. However, after taking this course I learned that leisure meant more much than that. Now leisure to me means, as Richard Kraus states, leisure is “time which is not devoted to work or work-connected responsibilities or to other forms of discretionary or unobligated time,” (Olson et al., 2003, 12). The “time” in which Kraus