Saving Time

by Jenny Odell

In The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han suggests something even more general: that “the drive to maximize production inhabits the social unconscious,”71 producing what he calls “the achievement-subject.” Rather than be disciplined by something or someone external to them, achievement-subjects are “entrepreneurs of themselves,”72 DIY bosses propelled from within. Although it answers to no one (else), an achievement-subject nonetheless “wears down in a rat race it runs against itself”73: “The disappearance of domination does not entail freedom. Instead, it makes freedom and constraint coincide. Thus, the achievement-subject gives itself over to compulsive freedom—that is, to the free constraint of maximizing achievement. Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation.”