Time–space intensification: Karl Polanyi, the double movement, and global informational capitalism

This article advances the concept of “time–space intensification” as an alternative to existing notions of time–space distanciation, compression and embedding that attempt to capture the restructuring of time and space in contemporary advanced capitalism. This concept suggests time and space are intensified in the contemporary period – the social experience of time and space becomes more explicit and more crucial to socioeconomic actors’ lives, time and space are mobilized more explicitly in individual and corporate action, and the institutionalization of time and space becomes more politicized. Drawing on Polanyi’s concepts of fictitious commodities and the double movement, and developing them through an analysis of work organization and economic development in the Irish software industry, the article argues that the concept of time–space intensification can add significantly to our understanding of key features of the restructuring of the temporal and spatial basis of economic development and work organization. Time, space, and global informational capitalism Having long defined the contemporary socio-economic advanced capitalist order in relation to what it is not – Post-Industrial, Post-Fordist, Post-Modern – theorists are increasingly attempting to define the contemporary era in terms of its own central features. One of the most influential among these formulations are those which emphasize the shift from an economy based on the manufacturing of industrial goods by production workers to one based on the design of informational goods and services by knowledge workers (Castells, 1997; Freeman & Louca, 2002; Jessop, 2000; Reich, 1991). This informational form of capitalism is also linked to socio-spatial change and particularly the rise of a global economy, spanning local and national borders and apparently operating on a planetary scale (Castells, 1997; Giddens, 1991; Reich, 1991). This global informational capitalism is also Theor Soc DOI 10.1007/s11186-006-9016-7 S. Ó Riain (*) Sociology Department, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Co. Kildare, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] characterized by new organizational forms, typically captured under the loose rubric of “network” forms of organization (Freeman & Louca, 2002). Techno-economic, socio-spatial, and organizational changes have combined to transform economic life therefore. But the effects go further to, arguably, transform the temporal and spatial basis of economic and social life itself. For some, the contemporary era is characterized by the “death of distance” and new virtual social spaces; for others, these spaces are increasingly controlled by capitalists, while for yet others local and regional spaces have re-emerged as crucial spaces within the global economy. This article explores this contested terrain of the temporal and spatial restructuring of global informational capitalism and advances the concept of “time–space intensification” to attempt to capture the dynamics of contemporary transitions. This concept suggests that, rather than disappearing or persisting unchallenged, time and space are intensified in the contemporary period: the social experience of time and space becomes more explicit and more crucial to socio-economic actors’ lives, time and space are mobilized more explicitly in individual and corporate action, and the institutionalization of time and space becomes more politicized. The concept of time–space intensification seeks to integrate two fundamental insights into contemporary capitalist organization – the undoubted intensification of capitalist domination and exploitation together with the protection and re-assertion of industrial and occupational time and space at a variety of spatial scales (the local, regional, transnational, and so on). The article locates existing perspectives on time–space restructuring within the theoretical lineages of Weber, Marx and Durkheim. It then develops a number of key concepts from the work of Karl Polanyi – including the notions of fictitious commodities and the double movement – to integrate some of the crucial insights of these classical theorists and suggest some of the causes of the dynamics of time–space intensification. Drawing on these concepts from Polanyi, the article argues that the concept of time–space intensification can add significantly to our understanding of key features of the restructuring of the temporal and spatial basis of economic development and work organization. The argument is developed using evidence from studies of work organization and industrial development in the software industry in Ireland, which grew rapidly through the 1990s, particularly around the capital city, Dublin. The Irish software industry has continued to grow, creating a high-tech region within a network of global flows in and out of similar regions in the US, UK, Israel, India, Taiwan and elsewhere (Saxenian, 2006). Given that software is apparently one of the most “virtual” of industries, it represents a perfect case for analyzing the transformation of time and space. Understanding time–space restructuring In the era after World War II a particular set of relations among state, society, and market was institutionalized internationally, creating a system of relatively stable national economies organized through an international order of “embedded liberalism” (Ruggie, 1982). These economies were tied together through a negotiated regime of multilateral trade but buffered from the full effects of these international markets by institutions limiting trade and capital flows. Within these relatively stable industrialized economies, large oligopolistic firms flourished and promoted bureaucratic organizational hierarchies – reaching down to the level of the work process through job demarcation and control of work rules (Tilly & Tilly, 1994). Theor Soc