April Marie Canillo

Introduction

The economic survival of the fittest is a product of the modern Western spirit of Capitalism, developed to ensure its own survival, and in turn has reshaped concepts of time, the purpose of life, community and social values, and cultural systems (Weber, 1905). The values inherent under the modern Capitalist system of the West, are time and money (Weber, 1905). Historically, throughout the existence of markets, social relations were established and maintained through systems of reciprocity and redistribution (Polanyi, 1944). Smith argues that the rejection of the Feudal mode of production – that was then the dominant economic system, filtered into the learning systems and value systems of the lower- and middle-class, resonating with these communities, and thus allowing for the new mode of production to gain foothold (Weber, 1905). This new mode of production, as Weber argued, produced an unnatural calling to fulfill desires and accumulate infinitely – greed (Weber, 1905). Through investigating recent scholarships of Millar, Howard, Mankekar and Gupta, and Meiu, this report aims to support the notion that the concept of “Time is Money” goes beyond purely ecocentric motives, and instead is dependent on both the particular cultural and historical dynamics that shape the dimensions of time (Polanyi, 1944). This, in combination with global trends such as globalization, the recession, and nationalism, produced differences in social life that are dependent on the individual’s class and ethnic stratifications (Howard, 2012). The spirit of Capitalism is continuously adapting and manifesting in different forms, changing social and cultural conditions, and enabling individuals to buy into the idea that to survive means to accumulate and fulfil commodified desires. 

What is the purpose of life? 

The dominant capitalist economy that prevails in Western Europe and American capitalism requires its subjects to fulfill their duty of accumulating infinitely (Weber, 1905). Weber argues that under this system, the connection to the title of success to the addiction of collecting money, combined with the avoidance of enjoyment of life, is an unnatural doctrine that every individual is expected to uphold and participate (1905). In contrast to Smith, it is this unnatural purpose of life – of people being dominated by money – a system that promotes the individual’s ability to live and adapt to its currents in order to survive, is the spirit that is altering traditional forms of cultural and social systems and thus blurring the lines between business and personal (Polanyi, 1944). The ethos that accompanies this capitalist system, situated ideas of hope to lower- and middle-class communities of transcending out of poverty, allowing for this economic system to dominate the West (Weber, 1905).

Wealth as the goal of the game 

The development of capitalism required a surplus population that had an income that allowed them to purchase cheap labor, and a section of the population that were willing to work as long as they continued to be poor (Weber, 1905). Throughout history, Weber argues that accumulating wealth was never the intended goal of laborers – but rather the individual wished to earn as much as was necessary in order to sustain themselves and their kin (Weber, 1905). The ethos of the traditional business person, with the traditional rates of profit, amount of work, circle of customers and mode of attracting new ones, was disrupted under the influence of modern capitalism and global trends (Weber, 1905). When the global recession struck call centres in the Southern Indian city of Bangalore, companies distributed fewer job contracts, had slower promotion rates and stagnated salaries, frustrating the call agent workers that had redesigned their life around their work, and sacrificed their traditional social relationships (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). The ability of the agent to meet their quotas depended on their ability to culturally appropriate their clients, consequently their productivity is measured by the customer’s satisfaction (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). In training sessions, call workers were taught how to groom themselves, how to use Western-style toilets, and became accustomed to adjusting their natural body rhythms in order to accomodate for the time-zones of their clients (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). Agents working for UK companies were trained to deploy formal speech patterns in order to index British forms of courtesy and hierarchy (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). Their work also depended on the loyalty of their customers, hence each interaction cultivated a form of attention, solicitude, empathy and intimacy – effectively blurring the distinction between personal and corporate (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). The driving force that attracts these young people to call centres, despite the unnaturalness of this form of work, is the promise of the generation of capital – agents, if successful in utilizing their time and skills efficiently, can profit greatly. Meiu’s investigation into the transactional sex trade along the coastal tourist resorts of Northern Kenya, found that the men drawn to this form of work were seeking modernity (Meiu, 2015). The Samburu men’s desire to avoid waiting around without purpose, or waiting for the gradual increase of wealth in order to hold the title of an Elder, fueled by the anxieties of the possible depletion of wealth, were influential in the men’s desire to speed up their potential for profit by transcending traditional forms of labor – inevitably shaking the foundations of other traditional cultural systems (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). Time and wealth in both cases are inseparable; the effective use of time resulted in a greater potential for profit, closer to the promise of modernity and thus increasing the distance between themselves and poverty. 

Similarily, the dissolving of the barriers between work and leisure, as seen in the work of Millar on the Catadores, shows how capitalism – in conjunction with the conditions of employment that have been shaped by particular cultural and historical dynamics – can shift perceptions of time (Millar, 2015). For instance, the Catadores have learned to adapt to a non-traditional way of life – a way of life that values productivity as the efficient use of time, in order to generate maximal profit (Millar, 2015). Howard explores the ways in which global processes have also influenced the proliferation of non-traditional forms of labor, and how the dominant system of capitalism has molded individual perceptions on the purpose of life, the understanding of status, and also subsequently create levels ethnic and socio-economic divisions within societies (Howard, 2012). Howard argues that the pressure on people to sell their labor, in order to spend it to buy commodities is a moral requirement – necessary for their survival (Howard, 2012). The lack of control over the means of production exists as a disadvantage (Robotham, 1988), and though the means of production is the same across categories of class and ethnicity – the inequalities that exist are not the same (Howard, 2012). 

Survival of the community, not the individual 

Maintaining social ties, a pattern that existed long before the prevalence of modern capitalism, is crucial to a community’s economic survival. It is in the individual’s best interest to ensure they have a reliable network and positive social relations, because when faced with catastrophe, the individual’s survival is dependent on their community’s resources and ability to prevail. In the long-term, social obligations are reciprocal, and the disregard of generosity severs the individual from the community, threatening the ability of the individual to sustain a reliable support system required to maintain wealth and positive status (Polanyi, 1944). In the case of the agents at call centres in the Southern Indian city of Bangalore, the social deaths between the interactions with those that do not work under the agents’ same conditions, isolates the individual from traditional community systems that consist of family members, and friends, and instead limits them to forming community groups within their workspace (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). This situation calls to question whether this non-traditional community – whose dynamics have the potential to hamper the productivity of the team in the workplace, can fulfill the social obligations expected in order to succeed long-term economic survival (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). In the context of sex tourism amongst Samburu men, the effects of market liberalization and structural adjustment programs, in combination with droughts, land privatization, and rapid population growth, strained people’s access to resources (Meiu, 2015). The strength in the reciprocal support between the Samburu men whom had solidarity with each other based on the shared experience of difficulty accessing the traditional means to achieve respectability as elders, was dependent on the age grade rituals that allowed them to claim what they perceived as morally superior forms of elderhood (Meiu, 2015). 

Transforming spaces: the blur between personal and business

Meiu argues that in the context of contemporary Kenya, social value and the socially recognized forms of social worth are being recreated under the processes of the new global economy, that links the values of age, temporality and sexuality (Meiu, 2015). Elderhood, alongside these processes, have produced new ideals of authority and respectability – where the gradual process of wealth accumulation through traditional forms such as cattle resources, in unison with the gradual process of aging, is no longer the dominant form (Meiu, 2015). Rather, the collection of modern material resources led to more influence in political and ritual matters as opposed to age status (Meiu, 2015). While selling beads, spears and shields allowed many of the young Samburu men to send money back to their kin-based homes for the purchase of livestock, it is ultimately through the relationships with the Western women that enabled them to accumulate more material wealth, start large businesses, and marry local women (Meiu, 2015). The maintenance of the relationships between these Western women is what is necessary in order to maintain wealth and success, and thus respectability in this modern form of elderhood status (Meiu, 2015). I would argue that it was not the desire of the Samburu men to become an elder ahead of their time that led to the the corruption of the temporality of age rituals, but rather it was the men’s desire to accumulate wealth as a symbolism for modernity, deliberately buying their way across the age grade ladder by generating more wealth than a labor migrant did in a lifetime, and consequently transforming elderhood into a commodity (Meiu, 2015). 

In the case of call center agents, the social isolation that resulted as the byproduct of the long working hours and the job’s high demands, influenced the eruption of erotically charged spaces – a collection of young individuals who seeked the formation of relationships within their workspace communities (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). These spaces were heavily surveillanced by managers and company employers, in order to regulate the development of relationships for the sheer purpose of ensuring productivity – and thus profitability – is not undermined by the formation and destruction of relationships (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016). Productivity, as Polyani explains, is equal to the individual’s worth or reputation – which is dependent on the individual’s lived reality, and is limited by the barriers set out by the dominating other, or institution (Polanyi, 1944).  

Conclusion

As recent scholars have demonstrated, in agreement with Weber, the creation and attainment of infinite money is an attitude toward material goods that suits the capitalist system and is dependent on the individual’s particular ethnic- and socio-economic conditions of survival in the economic struggle for existence (Weber, 1905). The transcending of traditional cultural values, such as Elderhood, is constantly being transformed under the guise of capitalism – where Elders in the past had acquired respectability, prestige and authority through gradually obtaining livestock, paying bridewealth for several wives, fathering many children and building vast networks of exchange partners and clients (Meiu, 2015), modern forms of Elderhood no longer consider age grades, and instead the status is obtained after the accumulation of an abundance of modern material goods (Meiu, 2015). The capitalist system acts much like a chief’s display of wealth in the context of a potlach of the Kwakiutl, where wealth is distributed among its members in order to place its recipients under an obligation (Polanyi, 1944); the market economy implies a self-regulating system of markets, holding individuals under the system under an obligation to fulfill their duties in the game of economic survival of the fittest – by orienting their lives for the purpose of accumulating wealth, for status, success, and respectability (Polanyi, 1944). The global political economy thus has become striated by race, gender and national location (Mankekar & Gupta, 2016), creating different levels of inequalities regardless of the mode of production and consequently forcing its members to transform traditional forms of cultural and social expectations.