This article aims to revisit and explain the theories developed on time by E.P. Thompson in 1967 in Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism. In this work, E.P. Thompson describes the historical transition from ‘task-oriented’ time (where duration is measured by the completion of a specific activity) to abstract time measured by the clock. He argues that this change did not result mechanically from industrialisation, but was the outcome of a long and conflictual process involving technol…
Read moreThis article aims to revisit and explain the theories developed on time by E.P. Thompson in 1967 in Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism. In this work, E.P. Thompson describes the historical transition from ‘task-oriented’ time (where duration is measured by the completion of a specific activity) to abstract time measured by the clock. He argues that this change did not result mechanically from industrialisation, but was the outcome of a long and conflictual process involving technology, work organisation, cultural factors (Protestantism, schooling, popular customs) and struggles between capitalists and workers. The article highlights Thompson's original methodology, which links the concrete practices of agents, social structures and subjective perceptions, and attempts to highlight the conception of history underlying this methodology. Finally, it emphasises the critical significance of Thompson's theory of time, which shows that our hourly relationship to time is neither natural nor inevitable and can therefore be challenged.
