Abstract

Capitalist development reduces the social labor time necessary for the reproduction of labor power, creating a vast amount of disposable time, but harnesses it as surplus labor. In an alternative political economy of time, capitalist "production of wealth" would be replaced by the postcapitalist "wealth of production." Marx famously saw the "true realm of freedom" as arising beyond that of "necessity," i.e., beyond humans' interaction with nature. He thus distinguished between forms of activity that produce means of production and consumption, and those that are ends in themselves. But what of those forms of activity that are both means and ends? An example is the work of care, a form of activity not explored by Marx. Consideration of disposable time and care suggests that true freedom may not so much blossom beyond the realm of necessity, but instead involve an expansion and complexification of the human relationship with and within nature