Abstract: From a traditional leftist perspective centered on class-struggle, things are easy: The capitalist economy produces winners and losers. The rich, the winners, gain wealth, time and freedom, while the losers have to sell their time and their autonomy and remain poor at that. With respect to time, the difference is portrayed as the difference between those who can command over their time and those who have to do as they are told (when working). Alas, in my paper, I want to argue that this perspective is 1) not just too simple (for the elites live in an iron cage), it is 2) plain wrong (for time-sovereignty does not necessarily reduce time-pressure) – and it 3) even plays a significant role in reproducing the motivational energies to keep the growth-game in place and motion.

This media entry was a contribution to the special session "Degrowth and social inequality: Eating the rich or governing the poor?" at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014.