We are still about sixteen centuries out from the signal constellation that would eventually give rise to the current world system. As Marx points out in Volume One of Capital, the essence of that system is decisively not money, or even the love of money, or the love of things. Thus, in his discussion of Aristotle, Marx emphasizes that, since social relations in classical Greek society were not mediated by abstract labor time expended, but instead by relations of direction domination in the private oikos, Aristotle was unable to logically work out the relationships among the products of human labor.
However, Aristotle himself was unable to extract this fact, that, in the form of commodity-values, all labour is expressed as equal human labour and therefore as labour of equal quality, by inspection from the form of value, because Greek society was founded on the labour of slaves, hence had as its natural basis the inequality of men and of their labour-powers. Marx, Karl (2004-02-05). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy: A Critique of Political Economy v. 1 (Classics) (Kindle Locations 2515-2518). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
What is missing is abstract time as a means of measuring the value of productive human labor. Or, to cast social mediation in Greek society in its own terms, social relationships were mediated in Greek society, as elsewhere, within and between a wide variety of practically negotiated regimes of practice. It was not really until the 14th century, using escapement mechanisms transported from China through central Asia along the trade routes that traders were now forced to share with crusaders, that human beings began to organize and coordinate the productive activities in time with the ringing of town bells.
Yet, as Landes points out, even here we must be careful not to read into its origins features that would not appear or even be useful until quite later. The escapement mechanism and bells that began to dot central and western Europe in the fourteenth century were originally erected not to discipline labor, but to announce times of prayer for cloistered mendicants, priests living in community. In the universe that they occupied, since they believed times of prayer to be a matter of divine revelation, it made all the difference in the world when a person prayed, at what hour, precisely. And in the colder and darker climate of central and western Europe other mechanisms – candles, water clocks, sand clocks, sun dials – were terribly ineffective. The Chinese escapement mechanism gave cloistered communities a means to measure not duration, which would signal the birth of capitalism, but the arrival of the proper time.
All reports are, however, that those living in the vicinity of cloistered communities were terribly upset by the constant ringing of bells. Their work rhythms were still calibrated to the rising and setting of the sun and to the cycles of seasons and tides. But since the chimes of bells in the monasteries chimed out intervals that were completely out of sync with the rising and setting of the sun, only in the very middle of Summer did the bell announcing morning prayer chime after the Sun had risen. Otherwise, neighbors were being awakened long before they had awakened and long after they had gone to bed. All reports are that it was very annoying.
Yet, it was not long before we have records of textile out-putting shops using the chiming of monastery bells to announce the beginning and end of their work days. And with this, we find the first instance where productive human activity is measured in equal units of abstract time.
Still it is worth emphasizing the fierce resistance to this new measurement that burst forth from nearly all sectors of society; from the nobility not only because it seemed to them that entrepreneurs were locking them out of wage and price negotiations in which they played a central role, but also because textile workers were complaining about working before dawn and after sunset in the winter, and of being deprived of work in the summer, creating a point of possible rebellion; from the clergy because they too were locked out of negotiations over the just price and wage, in which, for moral reasons, they believed they had an interest, but also because it seemed to them that ignoring the rhythms of Sunrise and Sunset, replacing these rhythms with abstract, equal units of time, struck them as the devil’s work; and obviously there was resistance from the workers themselves.
We should therefore take care not to cast the die too soon. Elsewhere in the world, in communities that enjoyed stronger, more advanced, and more elaborate administrative structures, and more deeply rooted and uniform customs and traditions, there was little to no danger that this new mechanism would supplant systems that functioned quite well. The clock would not be adopted elsewhere in the world until the nineteenth and, in many places, the twentieth centuries. Nor should be forget how fiercely workers resisted every attempt to tamper with time. This story has been well-documented in EP Thompson’s piece.
But, finally, we should also remember how prior to this revolution in time the compulsion to live efficiently was nowhere in evidence anywhere on the face of the globe. Thus, no one thought that it was the least bit odd when Europeans spent nearly two-thirds of their time on holiday, much of this in festival time. To remind us of this time and its leading characteristics, I have posted an excerpt from Bahktin’s Rabelais, which offers us glimpses of a world where social relations were not yet completely integrated into a comprehensive, logical system of practice.
It is the revolution in time that makes this comprehensive integration possible.