Abstract
Every society has its own collective representation of time which is adopted without question by the individuals who constitute that collective. Where does it come from? The hypothesis sustained here is that it is tied to the dominant mode of production. Briefly examined in this paper are economies based on hunting and gathering, cultivation, crafts and commerce, along with contemporaneous mechanized industry. The latter produces a homogeneous and linear time—clock time—on which salaries are based. With the surge of new technologies there appears a new type of salary too, one which foreshadows a new representation of time.
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