it can be pooled, saved and made to ‘work' by earning interest, in order to be spent again at a later moment and in whatever partial amounts one likes. Time, if it is not a matter of working time which is invested for pension benefits, is ‘wasted’ if it finds no current use. In this respect, the rest period'of old age is pre-financed time. The money preference thus also predominates on the market. Money can be transferred directly and without respect of person, without being tied to demands on the interests and the motives, the spatial or temporal presence of givers and recipients. Time, on the other hand, remains tied to individuals and the context of their lives, to their biography and their abilities. The time of the ordinary worker or the secretary is 'worth'less than that of the boss, and it is not exchangeable at will. Only the market creates shortage of time via the universally prevailing scarce medium of exchange, money. The state, however, administers the shortage of time. Money is subject to no restrictions inherent in the medium. The nevertheless prevailing limitations on its use are social standardizations of what money is not allowed to do because it can do so much.9 It is left to the state, however, to divide up over life the time scarce in life, but tied to individuals. It is the task of the state, as a successor to the church in the secularized area of national solidarity, to establish the time fixed for festivals and to determine when work has to 'rest'. The state draws up boundaries which mark off its territory from that of other states, but it also sets temporal limitations for its citizens: working-time regulations and hours of business, who is allowed to work at night for how long, for whom and for what reasons the clock may be stopped or put back'. In comparison with the money preference prevailing on the market, the state can merely intervene in a regulating and compensating fashion, if it is a question of 'crediting' periods, for instance, which have been spent on something other than work. On the market, any lack of time can be experienced as an incentive to improve the efficiency of one's lifestyle by an increased consumption of goods and services. The money preference predominates as a rule even when, or precisely when, the development of income and the job situation deteriorate, because then it becomes a question of defending both one's relative and one's absolute positions in the distribution of income. Status is determined by income and not by the extent of the free time available, as becomes clearly apparent from the example of unemployment. The time spent unemployed is compensated for only in the short term – and time without money proves to be economically worthless for most people.10
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Politics of Time