Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Karen Miller
The Question of Time in Postones
Time, Labor and Social Domination
1 See, for example, Thompson 1967, Lefebvre 1987, Debord 1995, Althusser and
3 Postone 1993, p. 5.
4 Ibid.
5 Postone 1993, p. 7. Postone includes thinkers as diverse as Paul Sweezy, Ernest
Mandel, Maurice Dobb, Rudolf Hilferding, Joan Robinson, Helmut Reichelt, and Georg
Lukcs (see his Chapter Two entitled Presuppositions of traditional Marxism, pp.
4383). In so doing, he has opened himself to various criticisms. For example, Martin
Jay writes that the intellectual historian will want to know why Marx was so easily
and consistently misunderstood by the multifarious figures Postone lumps together
under the rubric of traditional Marxism; this is not a trivial issue (Jay 1993, p. 186).
Similarly, Joseph Fracchia notes that the sweeping character of his category traditional
Marxism might be disturbing. It is easy, for example, to be skeptical about what
might seem to be making fellow travellers out of Marxisms as diverse as the reductionist
Soviet version and the innovative Western theoretical tradition (Fracchia 1995, p. 357).
6 Postone 1993, pp. 78.
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Postone establishes the basis of this view of historical time in his discussion
of the contradiction inherent in the commodity-form, which is a product of
both concrete and abstract labour. He argues that, while concrete labour
produces use-values, which constitute material wealth, abstract labour
produces value which is a form of wealth that is historically specific to
capitalism. Postone contends that it is this twofold character of labour that
creates the historical dynamic that constitutes historical time as a dialectic
between concrete time and abstract time. He suggests, for example, that a
distinction can be made between the use-value dimension of the forms
(concrete labor, material wealth, concrete time) and the value dimension of
the forms (abstract labor, value, abstract time).25 Further, he understands the
interrelationship between these two non-identical dimensions as not simply
a static opposition; rather the two moments of labor in capitalism, as productive
activity and as a socially mediating activity, are mutually determining in a
way that gives rise to an immanent dialectical dynamic.26
Postone argues that concrete and abstract labour, and hence material wealth
and value, are distinguished by the way in which they are measured, that is,
by two different forms of time. The measure of material wealth, he argues:
can have a temporal aspect, but in the absence of the form of temporal
necessity associated with the value dimension, this temporality is a substantive
function of production the amount of time actually required to produce
a particular product. This time is a function of objectification and not a norm
for expenditure. The changes in this concrete time of production which occur
with the development of productivity are changes reflecting the historical
movement of time.27
but in terms of what they all have in common, regardless of their specificity
the expenditure of labor,29 which is abstract time. Thus, the measure of
value becomes socially necessary, expressing a general temporal norm to
which producers must conform: [A]s a category of the totality, socially
necessary labor time expresses a quasi-objective social necessity with which
the producers are confronted. . . . The social totality constituted by labor as
an objective general mediation has a temporal character, wherein time becomes
necessity.30
Postone, then, makes a clear distinction between two forms of time, concrete
time and abstract time. Concrete time, he argues, refers to various sorts of
time that are functions of events: they are referred to, and understood through,
natural cycles and the periodicities of human life as well as particular tasks
or processes.31 Abstract time refers to uniform, continuous, homogeneous,
empty time, which is independent of events and processes. With abstract
time, motion and events occur within time as an independent framework,
where time is a mathematical time, divisible into equal constant, nonqualitative
units.32 He demonstrates the way in which concrete time, which characterised
precapitalist societies, came to be superseded by abstract time as a dominant
form of time with the development of capitalism.
Postone argues that the modes of time reckoning associated with concrete
time are based on repetitive natural events such as days, lunar cycles or
seasons, or on temporal units that vary in length, and that these modes were
dominant in the ancient world and medieval Europe. He suggests that abstract
time, which divided time into even, commensurable, interchangeable segments,
originated around the fourteenth century in Europe and gradually superseded
concrete time, thus transforming the social significance of time so that,
by the seventeenth century, it was well on its way to becoming socially
hegemonic.33
In explaining the emergence of abstract time, Postone refutes technological-
determinist arguments that suggest that it was the development of the
mechanical clock that effected the change in the constitution of time, arguing,
instead, that the transition was due to a change in sociocultural processes.
The mechanical clock, he suggests, does not, in and of itself, necessarily give
The entire abstract temporal axis, or frame of reference, is moved with each
socially general increase in productivity; both the social labor hour and the
base level of productivity are moved forward in time.45
expresses the motion of (abstract) time.46 Further, he argues that this intrinsic
dynamic of capital, with its treadmill pattern, entails a flow of history, and
thus can be considered historical time, as constituted in capitalist society.47
Postones interpretation of historical time, then, is one which expresses the
movement of time, as opposed to the movement in time,48 giving rise to a
process of social development and transformation that is directional, and
whose flow is a function of social practice. He writes that historical time in
capitalism
Postone does not consider in any detail the changes in the nature of historical
time;50 however, they are implicit in his discussion on the trajectory of capitalist
development, whereby the importance of abstract time diminishes to the point
where, in a postcapitalist society, it has no significant role in determining the
meaning of time.
Postone argues that value, which is the determining form of wealth and
social relations in capitalist society, is becoming increasingly anachronistic,
owing to the wealth-creating potential of the productive forces to which it
gives rise. Thus, he suggests that there is a growing contradiction between
value and material wealth, although it does not appear to be so, and that it
is a process intrinsic to the expansion of relative surplus-value. Postone writes
that with the
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Postone 1993, p. 294.
49 Ibid.
50 Postone does, however, recognise the importance of considering such changes,
suggesting that the development of the capital form could . . . serve as the starting
point for a sociohistorical examination of changing conceptions of time in the West
since the seventeenth century (Postone 1993, p. 294, in footnote 9).
51 Postone 1993, p. 298.
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The dialectic of objectified present time and objectified historical time can
be summarized as follows: in capitalism, objectified historical time is
accumulated in alienated form, reinforcing the present, and, as such, it
dominates the living. Yet, it also allows for peoples liberation from the
present by undermining its necessary moment, thereby making possible the
future the appropriation of history such that the older relations are reversed
and transcended. Instead of a social form structured by the present, by
abstract labor time, there can be a social form based upon the full utilization
of a history alienated no longer, both for the society in general and for the
individual.58
He points out that this would mean that work would be varied as well as
fuller and richer for the individuals,59 and that wages would become a form
of socially general distribution, 60 simply remuneration for labour-time
expenditure. Postone sees that the productive potential of advanced capitalist
production means that extra time for the many potentially emerges, reducing
socially necessary labour time and transforming the structure of labour and
the relationship of work to social life.61 Indeed, the possibility exists for society
to transform the social meaning of time, according to which there would still
be an economy of time but the form of wealth would not be temporal; rather,
people would control the economy of time for their own benefit.62
Postones interpretation of Marxs concept of time is both complex and
controversial. His detailed exposition of the nature of historical time in
capitalism is original, while his emphasis on its historical specificity, whereby
there is no immanent logic to history as a whole but only to capitalism, has
far-reaching implications for historical understanding. Moreover, the
prominence Postone gives to an immanent capitalist logic driving the historical
process, which places deterministic forces above those of human agency as
underlying the dynamics of historical time, also has important implications
for the interpretation of history. Perhaps his identification of two types of
time, concrete and abstract, which are inextricably linked to concrete and
abstract labour, as well as to wealth and value, is Postones most innovative
contribution to an understanding of Marxs concept of historical time. The
questions that arise from these aspects of Postones analysis are the focus of
the following sections.
Postone does not actually deny the transhistorical nature of labour; indeed,
at one point he writes that:
In its basic and abstract determinations, the labor process is the universal
condition for the transformation of matter, the metabolic interaction . . . of
humans and nature and, hence, a universal condition of human existence.65
Nor does he refute the notion that transhistorical categories such as concrete
labour, use-value and material wealth exist in both non-capitalist and capitalist
societies; he merely renders them groundless. Somewhat disingenuously, then,
he uses transhistorical categories to expose the historically specific nature
of historical time while, simultaneously, he denies them any validity for
understanding the movement of history.66 For example, he notes two modes
of dialectical interaction that exist in some form in various societies: first, the
way that people, by acting on external nature and changing it, change their
own nature (which are forms of concrete labour); and, secondly, the way that
social practice and social structure constitute a particular form of social life.
He argues, however, that a directional dynamic is not intrinsic to these
dialectical modes, but only become so when they are embedded within a
third dialectical interaction constituted through the twofold character of
labor that is specific to capitalist society.67 Early social formations, he argues,
possess dynamic elements and point beyond themselves only to the degree
that their forms of surplus production possess elements of the commodity
form. However, the commodity becomes a totalizing social form, a
determination of the mode of existence, only with capitalist society.68 Generally,
then, Postone regards transhistorical concepts as invalid to an effective
understanding of Marxs ideas as a self-reflexive, critical theory.
One of the difficulties that arise from Postones denial of the validity of
transhistorical concepts is his inability to explain effectively how capitalism,
and, specifically, how capitalisms historical time, arose. Postone argues that
abstract time is an historically specific concept, arising simultaneously with
capitalism. While this is true to a certain extent, it is also clear as is implied
in Postones own acknowledgment that some precapitalist societies such as
China measured time, in some circumstances, in constant hours that certain
formulations of abstract time were also present in ancient and medieval
To the degree that one can speak of a notion of human history in Marxs
mature works, then, it is not in terms of a single transhistorical principle;
rather, it refers to a movement, initially contingent, from various histories
to History to a necessary, increasingly global, directional dynamic.74
However, Postone does not explain or even address this movement from
histories to History, from precapitalist times to capitalist historical time.
Indeed, his rejection of the validity of transhistorical concepts precludes this
possibility. He can only conclude that precapitalist development can be
understood as logically necessary only when viewed from the present,
retrospectively, whereby
75 Ibid.
76 Indeed, as Kay and Mott point out, the labour process is both transhistorical and
historically specific, transhistorical in the sense that it is a condition of all forms of
society; historically specific, in the sense that consciousness of this belongs exclusively
to capitalist society (see their article in this issue).
HIMA 227_f12_209-237 11/18/04 1:39 PM Page 225
margins of his analysis; and I would argue that these problems can be
corrected only by transhistorical reflection.77
Fracchia contends that Marx rejected the mutually exclusive choice of either
transhistorical, ontological categories or historically specific categories and
that he developed instead a transhistorically abstract categories as a necessary
prelude to the construction of historically specific categories.78
To support his argument, Fracchia draws on The German Ideology, where
Marx and Engels suggest that:
[A]t this level of transhistorical reflection, the categories, like the prerequisites,
are abstract enough to be common to all societies and thus able to serve as
guides to approach the analysis of a given social form; yet the abstract
character of these assumptions and categories prevents them from grasping
any social form in its historical specificity.80
Thus, Fracchia notes that, while transhistorical reflections are useful for
differentiating between social forms, they are without value if considered
81 Ibid.
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Postone does not provide us (any more than does Marx himself) with an
account of alternative, postliberal, collective forms of social organization
outside the sphere of immediate production. We are left to imagine how
workers might become collective commodity owners. This political deficit
is one that Marx bequeathed to his followers and that remains unfulfilled.83
Again, Martin Jay points out that Showing that structural conditions for
change exist is a far cry from explaining the motor of the change itself.84
Ironically, these are similar criticisms to the one that Postone levels at
Jacques Derrida in his review of Derridas Specters of Marx. Postone suggests
that, for Derrida, fundamental change can occur only as the result of a
completely unexpected rupture; it is not a possibility immanent in the present.85
In contrast, Postone suggests that it is the accumulation of past time that
undermines the necessity of the present and makes possible a different future.
Here the future is made possible by the appropriation of the past.86 However,
Postone does not regard an understanding of the transhistorical elements of
historical time to be necessary to explain fully the motor or forces of history,
an understanding which involves the idea that time, as it is manifested at
the level of peoples activity, their experiences, and their lives, fundamentally
shapes the structures of time of a particular society, including capitalism.87
Postones views on the fundamental forces underlying the constitution of
historical time in capitalism are evident in his comments on the subject of
historical process, whereby he argues that capital not labour is the self-
of social structures and practice occur through experience and process, which are
based on human activity. For example, he writes that changes take place within social
being, which give rise to changed experience: and this experience is determining, in
the sense that it exerts pressures upon existent social consciousness . . . (Thompson
1978, p. 200).
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Marx suggests that a historical Subject in the Hegelian sense does indeed
exist in capitalism, yet he does not identify it with any social grouping, such
as the proletariat, or with humanity. Rather, Marx analyzes it in terms of
the structure of social relations constituted by forms of objectifying practice
and grasped by the category of capital (and hence, value).89
argues that class struggles do not constitute the trajectory of historical development,
but must be understood with reference to that trajectory. However, he also distances
himself from Cohens transhistorical presuppositions which see history as teleological
and linear, claiming them to be very dubious historically (Postone 1993, pp. 31920,
footnote 27).
100 Postone 1993, pp. 3834.
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Just as one must distinguish between an economy of time and the domination
of time, in Marxs mature theory, one must also, in considering the relation
between labor and social necessity, distinguish between transhistorical social
necessity and historically determinate social necessity.107
analysis grasps social reality adequately, expressing doubt over whether a postcapitalist
liberal society as outlined by Postone could be understood by an approach which
emphasises impersonal and abstract forms of power over personal or concrete forms,
(see their article in this issue).
111 McCarthy 1988, pp. 11718.
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that Marx begins with an actual historical entity, and that, as held by Postone,
which suggests that Marx begins with an abstract universal category that is
historically specific.112 McCarthy suggests, however, that if we understand
the commodity to be both an historical category, and a theoretical abstraction,
both moments are true. In this way, he claims to demonstrate, unlike Postone,
that this logic has a material dimension in that capitalist society expresses
this logic through the commodity-form.113 McCarthy concludes that how the
contradictions are worked out in the social reality is an historical question,
which can only wait for the intervention of social action on the structures of
political economy.114 It is, nonetheless, a question that, like Postone, he does
not address.
112 McCarthy 1988, p. 113. McCarthy is basing his critique on Postones position as
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, Postone has made a significant, albeit controversial, contribution
to understanding Marxs concept of historical time by emphasising its
epistemological aspects and historical specificity. In arguing that historical
time as a dynamic, directional totality is historically specific to capitalism,
and is constituted by abstract and concrete time, he suggests that the historical
process inherent in this temporal logic does not characterise human history
as a whole, but merely capitalist society. In so doing, he opens up possibilities
for reassessing the assumptions about transhistoricity and historical specificity
that, too often, remain unquestioned in the Marxist literature.
Yet, Postones rejection of the transhistorical elements of historical time is
problematic, in that it implies that Marxs concept of time has little to offer
the historian who wishes to understand historical time in non-capitalist
societies, or how change occurs between different social forms. Again, it poses
problems for historical explanation, inasmuch as it fails to address or explain
how capitalist historical time as a totality came into being, or what existed
prior to capitalism. As has been noted, Marxs comments in The German
Ideology support the idea that an understanding of historical time requires a
consideration of both transhistoricity and historical specificity. Indeed, time
can be understood as transhistorical, insofar as it is manifested through human
productive activity, and as historically specific insofar as the forms in which
this time is manifested, including that of capitalist historical time, changes.
Postone also emphasises determinism as a primary historical force at the
expense of a regard for the role of human agency. In fact, he claims that, while
a complex relationship between objective forces of capital and human will
shape historical time, human agency plays a secondary role in this process.
In all of this, he does not address the forces that underlie the construction of
time in non-capitalist societies, although he implies that human agency plays
a greater role in those societies than in capitalist society, even though it does
HIMA 227_f12_209-237 11/18/04 1:39 PM Page 236
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