Conflicting Temporalities

Abstract

The information and communication technology (ICT) driven, real-time tendencies of global capitalism are predominant, but they are not universal. Fast, short-term profits undermine long-term strategies of capital accumulation. In this respect, the structures and activities of global capitalism are riven by temporal contradictions. Such is evident between and within different fractions of capital. Fast and long-term imperatives also conflict within transnational corporations and business administration. On a global scale, the clash between different cultural traditions of corporate capitalism reflects opposing temporal logics of profit maximization. How then do these temporal contradictions play out empirically? My response to this question explores the general idea that spatio-temporal fixes enable the cohesion and reproduction of capitalist systems. To this end, I will point out that under global capitalism spatio-temporal fixes cannot be guaranteed. There are no built-in congruities interlinking state, nation, economy and society. Global networks of finance, production and corporate governance may weaken the conjunctures between nation, state, economy and society and exacerbate temporal disjunctures within them. From these observations, I will argue that state-centred constructions of time and temporality are weakening against the general, real-time tendencies of global capitalism. This sharpens temporal conflicts within the nationally constituted economy and the nationally circumscribed state. As upper reaches of the nation state conform to the temporal urgency of institutionalized supranational decision making, the marginalized national polity is answerable to the slower temporal rhythms of representative assembly, the election cycle, public policy formation and civil society. Against this background, worldwide coalitions opposed to ruling global interests are also riven by conflicting temporalities. Such conflicts reflect the temporal contradictions of global capitalism and the associated temporal conflicts within states, nations and economies.

Keywords

global capitalism real time spatio-temporal fix temporal disjuncture

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adam, B. (2004) Time. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Adam, B. (2007) `Foreword', in R. Hassan and R. Purser (eds) 24/7 Time and Temporality in the Network Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Aglietta, M. (1999) `Capitalism at the Turn of the Century: Regulation Theory and the Challenge of Social Change', New Left Review 232(November/December): 41-90.

Bauman, Z. (1998) Globalisation: The Human Consequences. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Brenner, R. (2003) The Boom and the Bubble: The US in the World Economy . London: Verso.

Buckman, G. (2004) Globalization: Tame It or Scrap It? London: Zed Books.

Carroll, W. and Carson, C. (2003) `The Network of Global Corporations and Elite Policy Groups: A Structure for Transnational Class Formation?', Global Networks 3(1): 29-57.

Clark, G. and Thrift, N. (2005) `The Return of Bureaucracy: Managing Dispersed Knowledge in Global Finance', in K. K. Cetina and A. Pieda (eds) The Sociology of Financial Markets, pp. 229-49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Davis, M. (2006) Planet of Slums. London: Verso.

10.

Dicken, P. (2004) Global Shift (4th edn). London: SAGE.

11.

Dirlik, A. (2007) Global Modernity: Modernity in the Age of Global Capitalism. Colorado, CO: Paradigm .

12.

Dunlap, A. (1996) Mean Business. New York: Random House.

13.

Edensor, T. (2006) `Reconsidering National Temporalities, Institutional Times, Everyday Routines , Serial Spaces and Synchronicities', European Journal of Social Theory 1(4): 525-45.

14.

Garratt, B. (1996) The Fish Rots from the Head. The Crisis in our Boardrooms: Developing the Crucial Skills of the Competent Director. London: Profile Books.

15.

Gowan, P. (1999) The Global Gamble. London: Verso.

16.

Habermas, J. (1998) `The European Nation-state: On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship', Public Culture 10(2): 397-416.

17.

Harvey, D. (1999) Limits to Capital. London: Verso.

18.

Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism. Oxford : Oxford University Press.

19.

Hassan, R. (2004) Media, Politics and the Network Society. London: Routledge.

20.

Held, D. , McGrew, A. , Goldblatt, D. and Perraton, J. (1999) Global Transformations. Cambridge : Polity Press.

21.

Hoogvelt, A. (2001) Globalisation and the Post Colonial World (2nd edn). London: Palgrave.

22.

Hoogvelt, A. (2006) `Globalization and Post Modern Imperialism', Globalizations 3(2): 159-74.

23.

Hope, W. (2006) `Global Capitalism and the Critique of Real Time' , Time and Society 15(2): 275-302.

24.

Jessop, B. (2002) `Time and Space in the Globalisation of Capital and their Implications for State Power', Rethinking Marxism 14(1): 97-117.

25.

Jessop, B. (2003) The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity Press.

26.

Olesen, T. (2005) International Zapatismo. London : Zed.

27.

Robinson, W. (2004) A Theory of Global Capitalism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

28.

Rude, C. (2005) `The Role of Financial Discipline in Imperial Strategy' , in L. Panitch and C. Leys (eds) Socialist Register, pp. 82-107. London : Merlin Press.

29.

Scheuerman, W. (2004) Liberal Democracy and the Social Acceleration of Time. Baltmore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

30.

Smith, J. (2004) `The World Social Forum and the Challenges of Global Democracy', Global Networks 4(4): 413-21.

31.

Smith, P. and Smythe, E. (2001) `Globalization, Citizenship and Technology: The Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) Meets the Internet', in F. Webster (ed.) Culture and Politics in the Information Age, pp. 183-206. London: Routledge .

32.

Staples, C. (2008) `Cross-border Acquisitions and Board Globalization in the World's Largest TNC, 1995-2005', Sociological Quarterly 49: 31-51.

33.

Wade, R. (2006) `Choking the South', New Left Review 38(March/April): 115-35.

34.

Womack, J. Jr (1999) Rebellion in Chiapas. New York : New Press.

35.

Zorn, D. and Dobbin, F. (2005) `Managing Investors: How Financial Markets Reshaped the American Firm', in K. K. Cetina and A. Preda (eds) The Sociology of Financial Markets, pp. 269-89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.