Resumo

CRISTIANO, Javier. The times of commodities: the temporal logics of Capitalism. Rev. colomb. soc. [online]. 2020, vol.43, n.1, pp.261-277.  Epub 27-Abr-2020. ISSN 0120-159X.  https://doi.org/10.15446/rcs.v43n1.74168.

Starting a couple of decades ago, a broad critical discourse regarding the manner in which time is used and experienced has proliferated in the social sciences. In particular, the development of digital technologies and their tendency to alter previous forms of experience and relation to the world has returned to the center of attention a classical theme of sociology: the social construction of temporal reality, from diverse perspectives that, nevertheless, share a tone of concern and critique. The intutition is that something important and serious is happening with time, a sort of essential alteration expressed in discomforts, such as stress, a generalized sense of urgency, a pathologizing pressure, or the artifical relations with the past and the future. The article seeks to contribute to the debate from a classical, yet not very frequent perspective: the relations between capitalism and a specific, non-random social construction of time. To that effect, it returns to Marx, with the hypothesis that his discovery of the logic of value and the commodity still contains a valuable clarification of the subtle links between capital and social time. The article, based on the thought of Marx and on his renewed reading by some recent authors, identifies seven temporal logics of capitalism: expropriation, acceleration, rationalization, obsolescence, futurization, fragmentation, and alienation, and specifies their meaning and the reasons why they derive form the substantive logic of capital. Thus, we provide a tool that links the widespread temporal malaise suffered by millions of people in our societies to a classical and fundamental critique of capitalism.

Descriptors: capitalism, Marxism, sociology of change, time.

Palavras-chave : alienation; capital; commodities; future; past; social time.

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