Space and Society

Dr. Zujaja Wahaj

Topic: David Harvey’s Theory of
Time-Space Compression (Part II)

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1. In lecture we will further trace the
construction of time & space in the
theoretical arguments advanced by Karl
Marx, particularly in his notion of
‘annihilation of space by time’ in the context
of capitalist expansion that serves as a
‘perfect’ prophesy about the expansion of
capitalism across the world.
2. How David Harvey adopts from Marx & how
he traces the genealogy of the conceptions
of time & space in various historical settings
which consequently leads to his notion of
“time-space compression”.
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Time–space
compression articulated
in 1989 by geographer
David Harvey refers to
anything that impacts
time and space. Harvey's
idea was rooted in Karl
Marx's notion of the
"annihilation of space by
time "
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 The “Time-Space Compression” is widely
used phrase to reflect upon the processes
that cause the relative distances between
different places/regions (measured in
terms of travel time or cost) of the world to
shrink to the minimum.
 Since the last four or more decades, we
have witnessed an unprecedented
proliferation of means of transport &
communication that have compressed the
world into what has been termed as
“Global Village”. 4
 While this phenomenon, which is not new but
continuous, is analyzed in the works of David
Harvey, who has since, 1970s tried
understanding this process by using Marxian
analytical tools to penetrate into the real,
hidden, & illusive appearances of this
phenomenon to bring out its capitalist
underpinnings.

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 In his book Grandisse (1973), Karl Marx
discusses in detail the phenomenon of
Circulation Costs as a transformative &
qualitative process of value which manifests
itself in different forms of money, production
process, product, retransformation into
money & surplus capital. New aspects are
created within this transformation from one
phase to another.

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 The repetition of the overall production process
will depend on the sale of finished products,
transformation of commodity into money &
retransformation of money into conditions of
production such as raw material, machines and
tools and the wages. Marx uses the term sections
of circulation to refer to the moves/travels in
specific amounts of time. Its pertinent to mention,
here even the space is reduced to time. What is
important is not the proximity of the market, but
the time within which it can be reached. It entails
that production process depends on the rapidity of
this circulation (how many products can be
produced in a given time period). In nutshell, it
tells us how quickly can the capital move & how
quickly can we create value.
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 As Marx meticulously notes, value doesn’t itself
depend on circulation (rather on labour), but its
frequency & speed does impact the rate at which
value & surplus value can be created continuously
& with greater frequency. The delay, therefore, in
transformation from one place to another
(production-sale to money-production) is caused
by external barriers not internal to production.

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 However, costs of circulation exist only for
exchange part, not for its value use. The more
the production process halts/rests on
exchange, the more important the physical
conditions of exchange become for the costs of
circulation.
 Since capital is highly mobile, it has to
overcome the physical barriers (annihilation of
space by time).
 In this sense, cheap means of transport &
communication become imperative for
production based on capital. The labour that it
requires to throw the products thus made into
circulation is a barrier for capital to be 9
Since the rapidity of the production process
depends on the circulation time, its rapidity
will be restricted by the amounts of time
that lapses during the transformation &
circulation. This is why for Marx, circulation
is no positive value creating element. If the
circulation time is equal to zero, the value
creation would be maximum, if necessary
labour absorbs all the time, no surplus value
& no value creation at all.

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Key point! According to Marx, the circulation
time is a barrier to the productivity of
labour; an increase in necessary labour
means decrease in surplus labour time that
in turn means a decrease in surplus value
which appears as a hinderance to the
increase in capital. It is in this context Marx
says: “capital must tear down every spatial
barrier to exchange & conquer the whole
earth for market”.

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Thus, in order to annihilate space with time,
the movement of the time spent in motion
from one place to another has to be
reduced, Marx further says, “the more
developed this spatial orbit of capital is, the
more it strives to annihilate space by time”

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In his book “The Post-modern Condition”
(1989), David Harvey captures Marx theme
of ‘annihilation of space by time’ and
presents his reflection on it in terms of what
he has termed as “Time-Space
Compression”.

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Harvey approaches this issue by doing a
meticulous study of historical geography to
argue that the concepts of time & space are
socially constructed & its genealogy lies in
the mode of production & its social
relations.

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Since capitalism is a revolutionary
phenomenon given its strong currents of
technological change, rapid growth &
development, it produces an equally
powerful revolution in the prescription of
time & space.
The annihilation of space by time as Harvey
argues, speeds up & accelerates the
turnover time (more and more revenue
generation in lesser time) of capital.

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According to Harvey, this speeding up &
acceleration can clearly be deciphered in the
fields of culture, politics, aesthetics &
geography.
This is actually what he seeks to show in an
influential article, “Between Space & time:
reflections on the Geographical
Imagination”, published in “Annals of the
Association of American Geographers” in
1990.

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Harvey argues that a strong & serious case
can be made that the history of capitalism
has been marked by accelerating the pace of
life thereby overcoming the spatial barriers.

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When we look at a clock, it seems as if it has
always existed or as if it is a natural thing. It is
important to respond to its imperatives. We
objectively set our life, organize social life
according to its setting.

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The way division of labour is structured in our
families seems to confirm this point. Before
Industrialization, both men & women worked at
home for subsistence purposes & it
represented one form of spatial organization.
However, with the onset of industrialization,
men moved into factories & women were to
take care of the home. Thus, industrial
capitalism based on particular notion of time &
space determined the public roles or gender
roles, division of labour, social reproduction in
general
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The main proposition of Harvey’s argument is
that every social formation creates objective
conceptions of space & time sufficient for its
own needs, purposes of material & social
reproduction & patterns its material practices
in accordance with those conceptions.
Example: New concepts of time & space
have been imposed by main forces through
conquest imperial expansion e.g., European
settlement in North America. It alters the
social framework within which the
reproduction of time & space takes place.
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Harvey notes the conflicts (social, class,
gender, cultural & political) among the various
connections of time & space in the modernist &
postmodernist literature. For instance, In on
account, Marx sets a fictitious conversation
between a worker & a capitalist. The capitalist
argues that a fair work is one when after a
day’s work, sufficient strength is retained to
work for the next day & fair wage is measured
in terms of money required to cover daily
reproduction costs. The worker replies that
such a calculus overlooks the depreciating life
of the worker. 21
It is essential to understand how Harvey makes
use of Marx’s conception of fetishism of
commodities to understand the underlying
realities behind this construction. When we buy
a puma t-shirt from the market, it doesn’t tell
us how has this tshirt been created, or has it
been produced by an exploited worker or
happy one. It means, as Marx has it, that
markets conceal the conditions under which it
has been produced.

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In Karl Marx's critique of political
economy, commodity fetishism is the
perception of the social relationships
involved in production not as
relationships among people, but as
economic relationships among the money
and commodities exchanged in market
trade. As such, commodity fetishism
transforms the subjective, abstract
aspects of economic value into objective,
real things that people believe have
intrinsic value.[1]

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Harvey argues that in order to understand the
underlying social reproduction behind this
notion of space & time, it becomes essential to
move beyond this canopy, the fetishism of the
market & commodity. More particularly, we
need to understand the material backdrop that
shapes the conception of time & space .

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According to Harvey, capitalism is a
revolutionary mode of production which
endlessly strives to unravel & create new
organizational forms, technologies in the
production & marketing sphere & exploitation.
It has been very responsive to the newly
emerging objective conceptions of time &
space. It is evident that the canal system,
railways, air traffic, TV etc has virtually altered
spaces & the relations thereby pushing us
towards new material practices & new modes of
representation of space.
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The elimination of spatial barriers & to
annihilate space by time is therefore,
imperative for the whole dynamics of
capitalist accumulation especially when the
capital is over-accumulated. The absorption
of surplus of capital through geographic
expansion into new territories &
construction of new sets of space relations
has been remarkable.

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This increasing integration & the
overwhelming change is what David Harvey
calls “time space compression”. It is a
revolution that includes both the destruction
of various ways of life & social practices as
well as the ‘creative destruction’ of wide
range of physical landscapes. Its experience
forces us to re-adjust our notions of time &
space & to rethink the prospects for social
action.

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