David Harvey, who is a leading theorist in the field of urban studies , in his work “THE URBAN EXPERIENCE” studied the forces that frame the urban process and the urban experience under capitalism, emphasizing on the themes of money, space and time; as they help in attaining clarity and frame the reference within which urbanisation proceeds. These themes i.e. money, space , and time may initially appear abstract. However, they are embedded in a social process that creates abstract forces that have concrete and personal effects in daily life.
Space and time-
Space and time may initially
appear as natural but they are social constructs and ways of measuring,
organising and perceiving them varies from one society to another. Within
increased social transaction of space, time and space have shrunk. According to
David Harvey, urbanism is not an autonomous process but a part of a larger
economic and political processes and changes. He states that modern
urbanism is when this space is continuously reconstructed. This is decided
by large firms who decide the allocation of resources, and by the government’s
policies which defines the landscape of the city.
MONEY
The concrete abstraction of
money: Labour processes are very complex and varied but often one tends to club
them as ‘production of goods’. The ‘concrete labour’ that a person contributes
to produce ‘use value’ gets represented in the magnitude of money (which lies
external to the ‘use value’ and ‘put in labour’ in terms of service/ product).
David Harvey points out that this money paid is abstract in nature because it
is symbolic of the material relation between the consumer and the producer,
without actually representing any of them. It is reflective of the ‘use value’
of a product and not the labour inputted to produce it. Money exists outside of
the ‘labour’, ‘labourer’, ‘produced’ and the ‘consumer of the product’.
Although not done previously, the
money in the form of abstraction can be used to concretely discuss labour. In
capitalism, labour is a motion and hence, can be measured in time. The amount
of money to be paid becomes directly proportionate to the time spent in labour.
Community of money: Money
in its abstraction is present in most of the production relations and hence,
gradually acquires a status of community. This community is marked by
individualism, certain conceptions of liberty, rights to appropriation, freedom
of contact. The idea of freedom that Harvey adopts here is borrowed from Georg
Simmel. Simmel states that freedom refers to freedom from the will of others.
In a capitalist society people are interdependent on other individuals such as
the supplier, supervisor, manufacturer, co-operators etc. and hence, never
truly free from the will of others. However, the money owners (bourgeoisie)
have the benefit of choosing who they interact with and hence, while being
interdependent are also free at the same time.
According to Georg Simmel, money
is a great leveller and democratic because it only concerns itself with
objective relationships. It objectifies relationships and levels everyone by
looking at them through the ‘objective-rational lens’, removing the subjective
characteristics attached to them.
Abstract symbolic modes of
thought: In capitalist societies, due to the frequent usage of the abstract one
gets conditioned to think in the abstract manner for non-economic activities as
well. The frequency of usage of symbolic commodity like money (versus tangible
commodity such as gold) is directly proportionate to one’s dependence on
symbolic modes of thought that can match ‘concrete abstraction’.
According to Karl Marx, a
quasi-religious quality is required to sustain the complex transactions of the
modern money economy. The concepts of measuring, weighing and calculating in
transactions, pressurizes individuals to indulge in such processes in real life
relationships as well. In Simmel’s terms this refers to intellectualisation
that functions as a secular religious for economy based on money.
TIME
Temporal discipline; compression
of time: Temporal discipline means a more adequate and predictable measurement
of time for the orderly conduct of business. With the development of machinery
(clocks and bells), time is used to control and call workers and separate them
from natural rhythm of life. It is through that that the managers get power to
keep track of labour time. Another example of technology being used to
discipline time is artificial lighting which is used to extend the day length.
With the barrier of darkness removed, a universal concept of time emerged. No w
the power to compress work hours lay in the hands of the bourgeoisie and they
dictated the maximisation of time to extract the most of the labourer’s surplus
labour time.
According to Simmel, ‘technique
of metropolitan life is not conceivable without all of its activities and
reciprocal relationships being organised and co-ordinate din a punctual way
such that it transcends all subjective elements (meal time, leisure time etc.).
SPACE
The money economy and
quantification of time has led to qualitative changes to the contemporary
meaning of space. Harvey links most of this change to the advanced made in
communication and transportation technology.
Following Marx, Harvey points out
how even land has become a commodity and the fact that one uses money to buy it
objectifies the relationship between individuals and land. This monetisation
eliminates the absolute values of the place. Secondly, this opens up a scope
for concentration of social power in a space. Thus, money decentralizes
participation and centralizes immense money in the hands of few. Since the
right over land can only be determined by money, thus only money is the factor
to determine power. Money allows people to participate in faraway causes
(instead of the ones at hand) despite being mentally and physically absent
because of their rightful monetary contribution.
Compatibility of the created
space with class relations maintenance: According to Harvey, the urban space is
partially responsible in maintaining interclass relationships as only the
wealthy can reside in the centre while the poor capture the peripheries of this
space. Money thus, allowing for land segregation also allows for class
division. The centralizing and decentralizing of money is implicated through the
changing meaning of land.
REVULSION AND REVOLT
With the new sense of time as
chronological net, money as monetary net- the social power gets concentrated
stifling the ‘aesthetic charm’ of living life. David Harvey mentions the
concept of Urban villager as proposed by Herbert Grans to demonstrate the loss
of authentic community that urban protests such as ‘Take back the night’ and
civil rights movement were aimed at. Grans elucidated with an example of an
Italian- American family living in West End of Boston. They were slowly moving
from rural towns to urban villages and there they could restrain much of their
formal systems. The society had a ‘peer-group structure’ which means that the
strongest group of an individual lies with their friends. Harvey wants to
explain here that living patterns branded as anti-social disappear along with
the substandard and low income housing.
MONEY, SPACE AND TIME AS SOURCE
OF SOCIAL POWER
The interconnections between
command of money, space and time matter the most and give enormous power to a
person. For example a super market manager knows that the command over a
strategic space within the overall construction of social space is worth gold.
The control over spatial organisation and authority over use of space tell who is
powerful and also contribute to the reproduction of social power relations. For
example the professionals such as engineers , who have the intellectual skill
to shape the social space materially come to acquire a certain power and
convert the specialised knowledge into financial benefits.
David Harvey sides another
example from household conditions to tell the interconnections between money
and time as source of power. He says that Mel which are nurse assume that
bringing home money give them the right to command the time of spouse and
children. the gender conflict is most often about who is at the centre of
social spatial organisation. At the end, Harvey says that concrete abstraction
of money space and time cannot be defined independently. For instance, money
arises out of exchange of labour and represents social labour time, at the same
time, world market that is space depends upon the rise of appropriate
money form and the spread of psychological three conditions necessary to
Money's proper use.
CONCLUSION
Money appears to be prominent
but, space and time gives most of the power to individuals. The control over
spatial organisation and authority over use of space tell who is powerful and
also contribute to the reproduction of social power relations. Capitalism has
produced an urbanised human nature endowed with a very specific sense of time,
space and money as resources of social power, and with sophisticated abilities
and strategies to win back from one corner of urban life what may be lost in another.
Every political movement or an observer must at some point confront the
confusions of urbanisation. It is only when one reflects upon their rationality
and social meaning of the conceptions of time, space and money can one liberate
themselves to think about an urbanised but non-capitalist world.
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