Toronto Theory Workshop - The Problem of Time Thrift and Critiques of Capitalist Discipline

The Problem of Time Thrift and Critiques of Capitalist Discipline”

In 20^th-century interwar Britain, John Maynard Keynes and Bertrand Russell offered speculative visions of a coming world: one in which most people would see a drastic reduction in labour time.  Although—or perhaps because—we have yet to see such a scenario unfold, the core questions raised by Keynes’ “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” (1930) and Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness” (1935) can still provoke our political imaginations: How would we adapt if we were liberated from constant labour? What would we do with more hours to ourselves, and would our choices be largely shaped by how capitalism has conditioned us to think about time and how best to occupy it?  If we return to Keynes’ and Russell’s speculative interventions and read them as failed, but critical, utopian visions, can we find in them a set of tools for rethinking our relationship to labour, leisure, and time? 

Taking these questions as a starting point, this paper explores what Keynes and Russell briefly gesture to as a major impediment to human freedom and development: time-thrift. Drawing on and extending what E.P. Thompson will later conceptualize as a “propaganda of time-thrift” that disciplines workers into saving time for a future they might never see, the paper maps out how a sense of economic purposiveness has become entrenched over time and evaluates whether it has taken a different form in post-industrial capitalist settings.  Finally, the paper—in conversation with recent literature on free time and idleness—speculates about how critiques of time-thrift might be marshaled politically with a range of ends and outcomes in mind: shorter workdays and workweeks, more institutional supports for housework and caring labour within households and communities, more just distributions of free time, and transformations in subjectivity.  This last end is, the paper argues, the one that Keynes, Russell, and Thompson imply will be most elusive but also the most foundational—learning or re-learning how to pass time.

Paper Link: TBA

Discussants: Ron Levi and Umaima Miraj

TTW fosters theoretical dialogue, taking theory in a wide sense. We aim to maximize conversation. Papers, usually works in progress, are circulated prior to meetings, and all attendees are expected to come to the workshop having read the paper. Presenters typically provide only a 5-minute introduction and contextualization of the paper. Then, two discussants (a graduate student and a faculty member) provide critical commentary, followed by open Q&A with all participants. Everyone is welcome, whether you see yourself as someone who works in theory or not, and whether you are new to the department or have been around for a long time.