The idea of fungible time as money is so familiar that it’s easy to take for granted. But it combines two things that are not as natural as they’ve come to seem: (1) the measurement of abstract and equal amounts of time like hours and minutes, and (2) the idea of productivity that divides up work into equal intervals. Any system of time reckoning and any measurement of value reflects the needs of its society. In our system of standard time units, grids, and zones, for instance, one can still read the marks of the Christian, capitalist, and imperialist crucibles in which it was formed.
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