To what extent is everyday life influenced by economic concerns?

By travelling down the historical road of economic development from the early 18th century to contemporary society, this essay will assess major changes along the road and discuss its implications and influences on everyday life.
The first section focuses on the shift from ‘task’ towards ‘time’ orientation to work and the transformation of labour into a commodity while section two highlights the change of time ‘off work’ towards a site of commodification and rationalization and timeless time. Finally section three will show the impact of availability of credit, the fundamental change in values it caused and the increasing economic concerns and uncertainty resulting. The conclusion will sum up all these factors to a whole picture on how much everyday life is influenced by economic concerns.

The industrial revolution and its shift from ‘task’ orientation towards ‘time’ orientation to work marks a significant change in spatial routines and in everyday life as a whole. A greater synchronisation of labour was needed in the 18th and 19th century and demanded a ‘time’ orientation to work and a scheduling of work tasks which had a big impact on the workers routines not only in the workplace but also in their homes and communities. They had to subordinate their routines to the new demands of the workplace which became more and more optimised regarding efficiency and profitability, or in other words, they had to subordinate everyday life to new needs and concerns of the economy.
E.P. Thomson found out in his analyses (E.P. Thomson in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.144), as labour was more and more transformed into a commodity, time became the value to exchange it for e.g. money and other commodities and so the measured time, clock time, became the scale between work and money and was leading to the development of a capitalist economy. Along with these changes, a shift in values where salvation was not gained through institutionalized means like the Catholic Church but through self-control, deferred gratification and productive use of every working hour, had further impact on the interrelationship of everyday life and the economy through the new definition of boundaries in time and space. Effort and efficiency became the way out of poverty and the way to ascent in society which resulted in less time at home with the family or in the community. The then born expression ‘time is money’ is very popular and a shaped our thinking and behaviour till today showing the centrality of economy and related concerns in our everyday life.
The focus on the body as a human motor and source to even greater productivity, moral improvement of the economy and the workforce was another change of values in this time of early capitalism. More and more the time of non-work was coming to be directly regulated in the interest of the economy, and time left over from work was not longer only justified by work but became its own space and time for commodification and rationalization.
E.P. Thomson’s analyses, especially the claims of such profound changes like ‘task’ versus ‘time’ orientation to work and the introduction of ‘clock time’, the transformation of labour into commodity and the emergence of the Protestant ethic show the change in values and routines with economic concerns in the centre, influencing everyday life to a very large extent. The well organised and optimised workplace today, the different salary systems based on exchange of time for e.g. money, holidays or other commodities and the principle of life long learning in order to improve and advance in the ‘work space’ and the community are only a few visible evidences on just how much our everyday life is linked to the economy today, from the routines at home to the activities in the community to the structure of our time ‘off work’.
The new values and routines, which resulted in a high level of productivity, increased stress and the need for distraction and relaxation in society. That fact combined with the believe to optimize and replenish the human body for more productivity gradually changed time ‘off work’, before a reward for work, into an organized space of rationalization and commodification, further penetrating everyday life as Henri Lefebvre concluded (Lefebvre in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.146-147). He claims through the above mentioned facts and increasing market research, everyday life, rather than work, has become the key site of reproduction of capitalism, centralizing the economy even more in our everyday life. The following example is good evidence for that and shows impressively how consumer demands are shaped by economic concerns and by that influence everyday life. The increasingly popular navigation devices in cars are promoted by appealing to the customer’s fascination with technical innovation and arguments like e.g. being more efficient and saving time. Such commodities serve the economy on one hand by getting the task done faster and more efficient and on the other hand, they optimize leisure time of the individual by saving time and accomplishing even more in less time thus increasing the level of satisfaction or keeping the level and saving more time for work or other leisure activities. Usually these specialized, good selling products which involve different industries have also short life cycle and are due to an ‘upgrade’ shortly, increasing the need for more money, earned through more work. It is also evidence that at least some, if not most ‘consumer demands’ are constructed to satisfy the needs of the economy as Lefebvre claims, increasing economic concerns of the individual and thus influencing everyday life.
Other economic themes influencing everyday life and further blur the boundary between work and leisure are the concept of the brand and the specialization of objects which I will not further outline in this essay.
The emergence of advanced communication, travel and information technology brought the complexity of our life and the economic concerns to a new level. Manuel Castells argues, that these developments gave birth do a timeless network society superseding the industrial society dominated by the ‘clock time’ (Castells in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.157). The space of places like e.g. the home, locality and nation are replaced by flows, movements of people, products and ideas at speeds never seen before. Evidence to this developments are flexible work patterns like e.g. part time work and work at home, which further blur the boundary between work and home, and enhance the influence of the economy on everyday life by using the flexibility of the new technologies and demanding even more productivity from the individual through these new possibilities. Almost everything becomes available instantly, truly making our society timeless.
The availability of credit marked yet another logical milestone of the so far illustrated road from early industrial society to contemporary society or in Castells words (Castells in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.157), timeless society, raising the complexity of life to even higher levels. With the availability of credit, a significant change in ethic values occurred. Until the end of the 19th century, the acquisition of objects was seen as material expression of work done, as Baudrillard argues (Baudrillard in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.159). Today, reward precedes production as he puts it. The availability of money before actually earning it is far more then a simple financial agreement, it is an essential part of our economy and society and nothing less than a new ethical system. Lefebvre’s closed circle of production – consumption – production (Lefebvre in Bennett and Watson, 2002, p.149) is mirrored as consumers borrow money to buy commodities so that society can continue to produce and are able to continue to work in order to repay the money lent. Not only do the time of payment and the length of time over which an object will loose its value often equal and require replacement and new credit, often the product is already second or third generation after only a fraction of the time of payment and thus needing replacement even before finishing payment on it. The supposed freedom through financial options comes often with an underestimated imposed restriction and complex discipline, clearly influencing everyday life and increasing economic concerns. After the ‘clock time’, this is a new, even more restricting discipline, producing anxiety and uncertainty with far reaching consequences for the everyday life through the obligation of repaying the dept and keeping the circle ‘running’. Not only are there new skills to acquire in order to handle the complex matter of credit which requires precious time to deal with the matter, the obligations and restrictions narrow down the freedom of choice like e.g. living where I want and to do the kind of work I like because of having to earn a certain amount of money a month. It clearly has the potential to alienate the individual from its future.

With the change from ‘task’ towards ‘time’ orientation to work, and the new Protestant ethic, changing existing values in the society, labour was transformed into a commodity and became measurable and exchangeable to such an extent, for the first time. Through the changing values, the use of time was optimized and economical aspects became more and more central in the life of individuals thus influencing everyday life more and more by blurring the boundaries of the different spaces of everyday life. Increasingly the time ‘off work’ became the key site of reproduction for the capitalist economy, tightening the circle of production – consumption – production through the drawing of new temporal and spatial boundaries.
Today we are dominated by economic issues and concerns, trapped in the circle and our everyday life is heavily influenced, if not dominated by them.
(1608 words)

References
Baudrillard, J. (1996) The System of Objects (trans. J. Benedict) in Bennett, T. and Watson, D., (eds), (2002), Understanding Everyday Life, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, in Bennett, T. and Watson, D., (eds), (2002), Understanding Everyday Life, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Lefebvre, H. (1971) Everyday Life in the Modern World (trans. S. Rabinovitch), in Bennett, T. and Watson, D., (eds), (2002), Understanding Everyday Life, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Thompson, E.P. (1967) ‘Time, work-discipline, and industrial capitalism’, Past and Present, no.38, pp.56-97, in Bennett, T. and Watson, D., (eds), (2002), Understanding Everyday Life, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Lury, C. (2002) Everyday life and the economy, in Bennett, T. and Watson, D., (eds), (2002), Understanding Everyday Life, Milton Keynes, Open University.