We are all familiar with "getting hours" -- our employers give us these hours, or (what is more remarked upon) they fail to give us hours. At first glance, it would appear that our employers are actually the ones receiving the hours, but in point of fact, without these employers, we would have no hours to give. They give us the very possibility of time -- our temporality itself as measured. This fundamental insight allows us to decipher one of the most puzzling aspects of Heidegger's later work -- in the "es gibt" (there is; literally, it gives), how can we think this "it" that gives without "ontologizing" it as some kind of supreme being?

 

The answer is surprisingly simple: to think the "it" that gives is to think capital itself. Time is the horizon of capital's giving of capital, and capital gives time. Capital never presents itself as such, prefering to withdraw in its very giving of capital and time. To think capital and its giving of time is to remain faithful to one's vocation as human -- the only alternative is to be absorbed into the meaningless anonymity of "the they" by sitting around watching TV.

 

[Working takes up all my time; the rest I give to blogging, to which I would give all, by posting via e-mail.]