Abstract:This chapter brings together arguments from economics, sociology, and political economy to show that innovation processes are characterized by a dilemma between the advantages of aligned expectations—including greater coordination and investment—and those of diversity, including superior openness to new technological possibilities. To illustrate the argument, the chapter discusses a historical case involving one of the largest coordinated peace-time attempts to hasten technological innovation in the history of… Show more
“…Equally, it is important to assess what hidden costs result from obeying capitalist temporalities. For instance, scholars could explore where the capacity to adapt to the unforeseen is impaired (Ergen, 2018); or how democratic processes are affected by both the temporal imperatives of capitalism and the time economy of the pandemic (Rosa, 2003).…”
Section: Winning Back Time: Towards a More Sustainable Temporal Ordermentioning
The coronavirus is not only a medical threat but also collides with the temporal logic inherent to capitalism. While capitalism demands constant growth, acceleration and efficiency, the outbreak urges societies to reduce, slow down and be patient. This article provides a sociological comment on the pandemic that focuses on the role of time and temporality. It explores the multiple ways in which the required responses to Covid-19 are at odds with the temporal order of capitalism. In the midst of crisis, the specific features, contradictions and weaknesses of the time regime governing modern societies become even more apparent – and make sociological scrutiny more necessary than ever. While this comment relates to the insights provided by the sociology of time, it uses a children’s book to illustrate its argument. Drawing on Michael Ende’s story of the orphan girl Momo and the grey gentlemen who steal people’s time, I recapture the main features of capitalism as a time regime: measurement and commodification of time, temporal expansion, acceleration, appropriation of the future, and unequal temporal autonomy. The current pandemic challenges both individual and collective temporalities that are governed by these temporal imperatives of capitalism. I conclude with reflections on the feasibility of a more sustainable temporal order that Michael Ende’s novel hints at and suggest how sociological research could support such an endeavour in the current crisis.
“…Equally, it is important to assess what hidden costs result from obeying capitalist temporalities. For instance, scholars could explore where the capacity to adapt to the unforeseen is impaired (Ergen, 2018); or how democratic processes are affected by both the temporal imperatives of capitalism and the time economy of the pandemic (Rosa, 2003).…”
Section: Winning Back Time: Towards a More Sustainable Temporal Ordermentioning
The coronavirus is not only a medical threat but also collides with the temporal logic inherent to capitalism. While capitalism demands constant growth, acceleration and efficiency, the outbreak urges societies to reduce, slow down and be patient. This article provides a sociological comment on the pandemic that focuses on the role of time and temporality. It explores the multiple ways in which the required responses to Covid-19 are at odds with the temporal order of capitalism. In the midst of crisis, the specific features, contradictions and weaknesses of the time regime governing modern societies become even more apparent – and make sociological scrutiny more necessary than ever. While this comment relates to the insights provided by the sociology of time, it uses a children’s book to illustrate its argument. Drawing on Michael Ende’s story of the orphan girl Momo and the grey gentlemen who steal people’s time, I recapture the main features of capitalism as a time regime: measurement and commodification of time, temporal expansion, acceleration, appropriation of the future, and unequal temporal autonomy. The current pandemic challenges both individual and collective temporalities that are governed by these temporal imperatives of capitalism. I conclude with reflections on the feasibility of a more sustainable temporal order that Michael Ende’s novel hints at and suggest how sociological research could support such an endeavour in the current crisis.
“…also Sewell Jr 2008]. In this vein, exploring the role of uncertain futures for capitalist dynamics has become a crucial concern for economic sociology [Beckert and Bronk 2018;Ergen 2018;Esposito 2013;Suckert 2021;Tellmann 2016;Wenzel et al 2020;cf. also Beckert and Ergen 2021].…”
Since the 1990s sociology has rediscovered a theme already present in the discipline’s foundational theories: the salience of future perceptions for social action. This article provides an overview of “the sociology of imagined futures”, a diverse but still scattered research field explicitly engaged with expectations, aspirations and future orientations. A review of recent scholarship emphasizes how an imagined future perspective is related to a wide range of topics and allows for innovative vantage points on persisting sociological research concerns, such as inequality, social identities, agency, coordination, power or understanding innovation and change. By systematically highlighting these contributions, but also by pointing to promising lacunae and perspectives that merit further development, this article shows how a reorientation of sociological research “back to the future” seems a promising way forward.
“…In the medium-to long-term, firms and markets in capitalism are notoriously dynamic social formations. As worked out by various literatures on innovation, there exist pockets for creative reconstruction of the action situation in capitalist societies, spaces for new imaginaries of the future that arguably are at the heart of this dynamic (Ergen 2018;Lester and Piore 2004;Stark 2009). The macro-sociological question of how to square the "restlessness" (Sewell 2008) of modern capitalist economies with their well-documented institutional and social embeddedness may be answered in part by the alternating temporal orientations of actors, organizations, and institutions (Beckert 2013).…”
Section: Uncertainty and The Social Constitution Of Expectationsmentioning
This paper discusses sociological analyses of the formation and role of expectations in the economy. Recognition of the social constitution of expectations advances the understanding of economic action under conditions of uncertainty and helps to explain core features of modern capitalist societies. The range of applications of the analytical perspective is illustrated by closer examination of three core spheres of capitalist societies: consumption, investment, and innovation. To provide an idea of core challenges of the approach, three major research questions for the sociological analysis of expectations are presented.
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