Nonstop Acceleration: The Economic Logic of Development towards the Nonstop Society

Through the ages, time has been considered a gift from God - though it has always had to be used in an economical way. In the modern era, time came to be seen increasingly as the resource par excellence, and the equation `time is money' was established. During the industrial revolution, this ap...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Time & society 1998-09, Vol.7 (2-3), p.209-221
Main Authors: Held, Martin, Nutzinger, Hans G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Commodification
Development
Economic Development
Economic History
Environment
Industrial revolution
Industrialization
Nature
Social change
Social Development
Social History
Sustainable development
Temporal dimension
Time
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Summary:Through the ages, time has been considered a gift from God - though it has always had to be used in an economical way. In the modern era, time came to be seen increasingly as the resource par excellence, and the equation `time is money' was established. During the industrial revolution, this approach led to an enormous leap in growth and acceleration, brought about by the large-scale exploitation of carbon deposits accumulated over millions of years. Thus the conditions were created which enabled humans both to ignore the rhythms of nature and to attain the `perpetual motion' and `rest-lessness' of the nonstop society. Still, this `theft of time' cannot be carried on endlessly since, in spite of technological progress, it undermines the conditions of possibility for future economic activity and is therefore not `rational' in the long term, even from an economic point of view.
ISSN:0961-463X
1461-7463
DOI:10.1177/0961463X98007002003