Analyses of value and economy must therefore be understood in light of the finitude of time. Any economy is ultimately an “economy of time,” Marx writes in his Grundrisse, since any form of “activity depends on economization of time.”6 This is the argument that I seek to ground on the deepest level. To grasp the stakes and implications of the economy of time, we must proceed from the conditions of intelligibility for spiritual life, which are implicit in Marx’s account but that he himself does not explicitly recognize as such.
Marx’s analysis of economy can be seen to operate on three levels. These levels allow Marx to analyze historically specific forms of economic life, but I will show that the analytical levels themselves reflect conditions of intelligibility for any economy.
The first level is what Marx calls the level of appearance. All economies must appear in some form, and the form of appearance is price. In capitalist economies, price has many forms of appearance—wages are the price paid by the capitalist, profit is the price paid by the worker and consumer, rent is the price paid by the leaser of property, and so on. Even a noncapitalist economy, however, must appear through some form of price. An economy is not intelligible unless there is a cost of production, which means that there must be a price to pay for both parties in an economic transaction. If it did not cost me anything to provide you with something, it would not be intelligible that any price is involved in our transaction. Even when I give you something for free, the mere act of giving it to you must involve a cost for me—if only the cost of the time it takes me to give it to you. My act would not be intelligible as a gift unless giving it entailed a cost for me and just by virtue of recognizing it as a gift you become indebted, even if neither one of us insists on the debt.
Under capitalism, the form in which economic relations appear is money, which allows us to measure the price of goods and services. Yet we all know that there is a difference between price and value. Something can be sold for a higher price than before and still have less value than before (e.g., due to inflation). Prices can fluctuate in accordance with a number of factors on the market, but they are intelligible as prices only due to a measure of value. We cannot understand how much something is worth merely by looking at the price, but must understand the price in light of a measure of value.
The measure of value is the second level of Marx’s analysis, which he calls the level of essence. The measure of value is essential, since it determines how we calculate growth in an economy and thereby how we measure the overall wealth in a society. An economy does not grow because there is more money circulating—on the contrary, an economy can be shrinking when there is more money circulating than previously—but because there is an overall increase of value in the economy. The measure of value, then, is the essence of any economy. In traditional philosophy, an essence designates a substance that remains the same regardless of historical transformations. For Marx, however, the essence of an economical system—the measure of value—is itself something that can change historically. We can change the essence of our economy (our measure of value) and thereby also change the form in which our economic relations appear. How we organize our economy and how we measure the value of our time are open to historical transformation.
Nevertheless, we will always have to organize our lives into some form of economy of time, since there will always be a question of what we should do with our time—what we should prioritize. The third level of Marx’s analysis is therefore concerned with the transhistorical conditions for any economy. Transhistorical conditions are not beyond history but rather a feature of every historical epoch. How we organize our lives into an economy of time is historically specific, but that we have to organize our lives into an economy of time is a condition for any form of society. Likewise, how we organize our social relations and how we relate to our embodiment is historically specific, but that we are social beings and that we are embodied are general features of spiritual life. In short, how we exist is historically specific, but that we exist as historical beings—finite, embodied, and social—is a condition for every moment of history. There has never been and there will never be a historical epoch that does not require some form of economy of time, some form of labor, some form of social relations, some mode of producing and reproducing life.
The deepest question, however, is why these features are necessary for every form of historical and spiritual life. Marx’s own analysis here begins to falter and lapses into biological or anthropological explanations. The transhistorical conditions of economic life, he tells us in Capital, are ultimately due to “the ever-lasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence,”7 which makes us embodied and finite social beings, who have to divide labor among ourselves in order to sustain our lives. Marx thereby makes it seem as though these features of economic life are due to our supposed biological and anthropological nature. Yet the deeper question is what makes life intelligible as an economy of time in the first place. For all living beings, life is valuable in the sense that they seek to maintain life through their purposive activity. Only a spiritually free being, however, can treat her life as a matter of what she values—and thereby as structured by an economy of time that reflects her priorities—since only a spiritually free being can ask herself what is worth doing with her time. The question, then, is what makes it possible to understand an economy as an economy, a value as a value, and a cost as a cost.
Answering the question requires a fourth level of analysis, which Marx never explicitly pursues but that I provide in depth. The fourth level of analysis concerns the conditions of intelligibility for spiritual life. On this level of analysis, we can establish that all forms of spiritual life must be finite, embodied, and social—not because of imposed biological or anthropological conditions but because life is intelligible as spiritual life only in terms of an economy of time. Even for someone who would be made of different materials than us and belong to a different species of spiritual life, leading a life would be possible only in terms of an economy of time. Economical questions—which activities you value and how you value them—cannot be contained in a specific and supposedly independent sphere of spiritual life (e.g., the market). Rather, economical questions are at the heart of any form of spiritual life. To lead a life, you have to be engaged in some form of practical deliberation regarding what you ought to do and why you ought to do it. Such practical deliberation requires that you can compare the value of different activities and ask yourself what is worth doing with your time.
The question is intelligible only for someone who believes that her life is too short. It is because the scarcity of your lifetime is an issue for you that you can ask yourself how you should spend your time. If the scarcity of your lifetime were not an issue for you—if you were not at stake in your actions—you could not have any normative relation to what you do or what happens to you. It would make no difference to you how you spend your time or how you are forced to spend your time. You could languish in passivity or be ruthlessly exploited by others and it would not disturb you on any level. Only for someone who is anxious about her life can there be a right or a wrong time for an action, and only for someone who is anxious about her life can there be too much or too little time. Moreover, only someone who is anxious about her life can try to resist exploitation and be determined to lead her life. In leading a life, you are necessarily engaged in the question of how you should spend your time and what you should prioritize, which is fundamentally a question of valuing. All your normative relations to time—even your most fine-grained sensations of something being too fast or too slow, too persistent or too fleeting, a precious gift or a wasted opportunity—depend on you being at stake in what happens and actively valuing your own time.
The originary measure of value is therefore your finite lifetime. That you value your own finite time renders intelligible the possibility of valuing anything at all. You can compare the value of two different activit
ies—discriminate between what is worth doing and not worth doing—only because it matters to you what you do with your finite time.
We must pay attention here to the philosophical distinction between valuing something and merely believing that something is valuable. To value someone or something is not reducible to believing that a person, an object, or a pursuit is valuable.8 There are many things I believe are valuable, but only a few things that I am valuing in the sense of making them a priority in my life. For example, I believe that the discipline of medicine is highly valuable, but it is not a priority in my life to be a doctor. By contrast, in valuing the life of my child—even and especially because the life of my child is invaluable to me—I am not merely avowing a belief. I am expressing a commitment to which I hold myself and that places demands on me. This is obvious in the case of a child whom I love and who requires my care, but in a minimal form it is true of anything I value. To value someone or something is to put myself at stake in what happens to what I value. By virtue of my commitment, I cannot be indifferent but must be responsive to the fate of what I value. Even when I believe that something is valuable without being directly involved with it—e.g., the discipline of medicine—I have to be willing to do something on its behalf. Indeed, if the discipline of medicine were threatened, I would be compelled to do what I can to save it. If I am not willing to do or say anything to defend the discipline of medicine, I do not actually believe that it is valuable.
Thus, while the activity of valuing can be distinguished from the belief that something is valuable, the two are ultimately inseparable. Even if I do not make the discipline of medicine a priority in my life, my belief that it is valuable has practical implications. Whether I hold something to be of small, great, or inestimable value, I must be committed to caring for it in some form. Such care may be expressed by advocating, sustaining, nurturing, or striving to realize what I value, but in all cases it is a question of devoting my own lifetime to what I value. To value something, I have to be prepared to give it at least a fraction of my time. This is why finite lifetime is the originary measure of value. The more I value something, the more of my lifetime I am willing to spend on it. If someone or something is invaluable to me, I may even be willing to give up my life—all my lifetime—for its sake.
II
My argument that finite lifetime is the originary measure of value provides the key to Marx’s thinking. The key unlocks his understanding of necessity and freedom, his revaluation of the notion of value at the heart of capitalism, and his critique of religion.
The finitude of our lifetime, I argue, opens both the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom. It is because we are finite and self-maintaining that we live in a realm of necessity but also have the chance to lead a free life.
My distinction between the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom hinges on two different relations to the time that is required for an activity. Let me take a simple example. I have to drink water to stay alive. If I am required to walk two hours per day to acquire water from a distant well, my activity is in the realm of necessity, since the time I spend walking to the well is not valuable in itself but merely a means for the end of sustaining my life. If I could reduce the necessary labor time by having running water in my house, I would do so. Inversely, if I enjoy walking two hours per day as an intrinsic part of a fulfilling life, my activity is in the realm of freedom, since the time I spend walking is valuable for its own sake. The activity of walking is not merely a means for getting exercise or acquiring water but an end in itself for me, so even if I could reduce the time I spend walking I would not do so.
What here holds for walking is true of any intentional activity. The activity in question can belong either to the realm of necessity or the realm of freedom, depending on the purposive structure of my activity. If my activity essentially belongs to the purpose of what I am doing—e.g., if I am walking for the sake of being a hiker—my activity is in the realm of freedom, since the time I devote to the activity is valuable in itself. Whereas if my activity does not essentially serve the purpose of what I am doing—e.g., if my walking is an effort to secure the water I need but would prefer to acquire by more efficient means—my activity is in the realm of necessity, since the time I devote to the activity is not valuable in itself.
How we distinguish between the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom is never settled once and for all, but we have to make the distinction for there to be a question of freedom in our lives. If I treated all my activities merely as means—if nothing I did counted as valuable in itself for me—I could not lead a life, since my life would have no purpose internal to its own activities. Inversely, if I treated everything I do as valuable in itself, I could not lead a life either, since whatever I do would be an essential part of the purpose of my life and there would be no question of what I ought to do with my life.
The realm of freedom and the realm of necessity are thus interdependent. Like two sides of the same coin, they are inseparable but distinguishable. The two realms are not the same—and we can analyze the distinct formal features of each realm—but one cannot exist without the other.
The distinction between the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom reflects two sides of how finite lifetime is the originary measure of value. When I do something in the realm of necessity, the time I spend on the activity is normatively understood as a “cost” for me. The work I do in the realm of necessity concerns objects that I need—e.g., water—and which require some form of labor on my part. The more time I must spend on my labor in the realm of necessity, the higher is the value I ascribe to the product of my labor. If I have to walk for hours every day to acquire water, each cup of water is more valuable to me than if I merely have to turn on the faucet at home to have enough to drink. If I spill my water after hours of walking home from a distant well, it is a greater loss for me than if I spill my water next to a running faucet, since in the former case it will cost me more of my lifetime to retrieve the water I need.
The correlation between labor time and value holds for all the objects I produce or acquire in the realm of necessity. The time I spend on securing the objects I need is not valuable in itself, so their value is determined by how much lifetime it costs me to generate and maintain them for consumption.
The preferred form of labor in the realm of necessity is therefore what Marx calls “dead labor.” Dead labor designates work that is already done and stored up for future use. A bottle of water that I have brought back from the well contains a certain amount of completed (“dead”) labor, and its value is determined accordingly. More generally, the practical know-how that I have acquired through repeated practice is a form of objectified, past labor that I can draw on without having to start from the beginning every time I have to do something. Most importantly for Marx, all kinds of material technologies are forms of dead labor, since technologies allow us to get things done more efficiently while reducing the amount of living labor involved in the process. After we have drilled a well in the middle of our village, we can all get the water we need without having to spend more than a fraction of our day on the pursuit.
The rational aim, then, is to reduce the realm of necessity and increase the realm of freedom. The less time we must devote to activities that are merely means to an end, the more time we can devote to activities that for us are ends in themselves. What those activities are is not a given, and part of living in the realm of freedom is having time to develop or transform our conceptions of what makes life worth living. In the realm of freedom my activities are ends in themselves—including the activity of interrogating what should count as an end in itself—since I pursue the activities on the basis of my commitments rather than because of material need or coercion.
The measure of value is thus different in the realm of freedom than in the realm of necessity. The value of an object or an activity in the realm of freedom is not dire
ctly correlated with the amount of labor time required to produce or maintain it. Rather, the value of an object or an activity depends on my normative commitments. For example, a chapter of the book I am writing does not become more valuable just because I spend a lot of time working on it. In the realm of freedom, the value of my chapter is determined by the degree to which it answers to what I think the chapter ought to be. If I manage to produce a profound argument quickly, it is worth more than a mediocre claim that took me a long time to articulate. Likewise, a love relationship does not become more valuable merely because we spend many years working on it. In the realm of freedom, the value of our relationship is a matter of our commitment to one another and the life we share. For the same reason, the time we spend in the realm of freedom is not normatively understood as a negative “cost” for which we should be compensated. Rather, spending time in the realm of freedom is a value in and for itself. In the realm of freedom, value is not measured by accumulated, dead labor time but by how much time we have to lead our lives. The more free time we have to pursue the activities that matter to us, the wealthier we are.
The negative measure of value in the realm of necessity (the cost of labor time) presupposes the positive measure of value in the realm of freedom (the value of having time to pursue the activities that matter to us). The dead labor that serves as the measure of our wealth in the realm of necessity (i.e., the goods and technologies we have secured for our benefit) is valuable only insofar as it reduces our necessary labor time and frees up more time for us to lead our lives. The reason we are better off with a well in the middle of our village is that it gives us more disposable time for other pursuits.
This Life Page 25