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  • Published: 26 October 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241667163
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $28.00
Categories:

The Politics of Time

Gaining Control in the Age of Uncertainty





The renowned radical economist Guy Standing turns his attention to our time, and how to reclaim it

How does a person organize a good life? The ancient Greeks divided time into five types: labour, work, leisure, play and aergia (contemplation). But labour was separated from work, as painful, onerous work undertaken for survival, whereas work could include caring for family members, study, or political activities. But now our jobs are supposed to provide all meaning in life and our time outside of work is thought of as simply 'time off'.

Time has been political throughout history. In the Industrial Era employers sought to define labour as virtuous, and in our current era of runaway neoliberalism, salaried workers find their mental health plummeting, public services are stretched to breaking point and inequality is soaring, while the time of those in insecure employment is being stolen from them in increasingly byzantine and humiliating ways.

We must recognize that time is political, a resource more precious than money, that must be defended at all costs, and revive ancient forms of tending ourselves, the planet and each other, through commoning. We can retake control of our time, but we must do it together.

  • Published: 26 October 2023
  • ISBN: 9780241667163
  • Imprint: Penguin Audio
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $28.00
Categories:

About the author

Guy Standing

Guy Standing has a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. He has held professorships at the University of Bath and SOAS, University of London, following a long career at the International Labour organisation in Geneva, and has advised the UN, World Bank and governments around the world on labour and social policy. He is currently a professorial research associate at SOAS. In 1986 he co-founded the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) and now serves as its honorary co-President. He has been invited to speak on the precariat and basic income in over 350 locations since his bestselling book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class was first published in 2011. He lives in Switzerland and is a Fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences.

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