The Clockwork Catastrophe: Time, Capitalism, and the Climate Crisis
Pavan Vyas
At first glance, the title looks like a series of abstract words. However, there is a clear and direct connection between them—the invention of measuring time in a certain format, the rise of the capitalist mindset, and the present-day climate crisis! To understand this, we have to hop into a virtual time machine and rewind to the mystery century when the clock was first invented.
Europeans invented the pendulum clock after centuries of failed attempts[1] and resource wastage[2] that could make a climate activist cry. Although timekeeping was an ancient practice referred to in various Indian texts by different names, such as Ghatika Yantra[3], the method Europeans started was new and systematic. Owing to imperialism, it spread like wildfire across the globe. Soon, the invention was adopted by people from all walks of life—architects built clock towers as symbols of modernity, painters incorporated clocks into their backgrounds, and churches began using clocks to remind people of the time of devotion.
The troubles of modern life commenced when the philosophers let the clock invade their minds. “The pendulum clock,” with its rhythmic swing, became more than a timekeeping device – it became a metaphor for existence itself! One philosopher, gazing at its steady motion, dared to compare the universe to the clock. “Where is God?” he mused. “Perhaps, like the clockmaker, He wound up the universe and set it in motion, leaving it to tick away on its own.”[4]
This perspective suggested that nature, like a clock, was abandoned by its creator. Using the same logic, people began to believe that nature was not a sacred gift but a resource to be claimed. This disconnection gave humankind free rein to exploit nature at will.
Another philosophical shift followed: to understand the clock, one must open it and see how it works. Similarly, scientists and industrialists began dissecting nature. This mechanistic worldview led to the belief that nature is a machine—an idea that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution[5]. The lens of viewing nature as a complex scientific phenomenon suggested nature as a machine that could be deconstructed and reconstructed. Similarly, if nature is a machine, and humans are part of nature, then humans too must be machines!
Now, if we break this down, machines have two basic motions—towards and away. Similarly, humans have two basic notions—pleasure and pain. And how do you control a machine, er, human? Through rewards and punishments. Or, as the MBA crowd would say: incentives and disincentives, the never-ending game of carrot and stick - a framework that underpins capitalism.
With the rise of capitalism, “happiness,” which is a part of being human, is not a peaceful, contented mind but the relentless pursuit of progress from one desire to another desire. How are these pursuits fueled? By exploiting nature. The Industrial Revolution became the stage for this mechanized march, and capitalism was its driving force—a system that thrived on extraction, inequality, and unchecked growth.
This mechanized worldview did not stop at nature. It seeped into our relationships and our societies, giving rise to hierarchies like patriarchy and the normalization of exploitation. The clock, once a tool to measure time, became a symbol of control—over nature, over people, over the rhythms of life itself.
Before the clock, life flowed with the rhythms of nature—the rising sun, the changing seasons, the gentle arc of the day. But with the invention of the clock, time became something rigid, something to measure, something to control. The organic routine was replaced by the relentless tick-tock, and suddenly, life became a race against the clock.
The concept of achieving tasks before a certain hour was born. Productivity was no longer about balance or harmony but about squeezing every drop of effort into the hours the clock dictated. And then came the darker philosophy: Let the common man work round the clock so he has no time to think. Thinking, after all, is dangerous. It is the seed of revolution, the spark of change. But when people are bound to the clock, chasing deadlines and survival, where is the time to reflect, question, and rise?
Perhaps the connection seems far-fetched at first glance. Surely, there are benefits of this invention[6], and it is not that the invention of the clock is the only reason behind today’s challenges, but it is undeniably one of the strongest. Looking back at history, we see how profoundly it shaped how we live, think, and even dream.
If we step back and imagine a world without clocks, would people truly become lazy or uncoordinated? A glance at Indian history before the widespread use of mechanical clocks shows that productivity and innovation thrived in tune with natural rhythms, not artificial schedules. Humanity was not waiting for a cuckoo bird to tell them when to get stuff done.
The lesson here is not to reject time but to respect its natural flow. The first thing nature teaches is to respect time—the daylight, the sunset, and the night. There are certain rhythms that we follow naturally to live a longer and healthier life, but they have little to do with the rigid segmentation imposed by the clock. The clock took these natural rhythms and shrank them down to tiny, bite-sized chunks.
The clock turned time into a tool for capitalism. It chopped up existence into neat little segments, monetized every second, and made us feel guilty for taking a nap. Now that we are so tied to this tiny machine, it is almost impossible to imagine life without it.
Yet, the clock itself is not to be blamed. It is how we have wielded its power that has led us here. By reimagining our relationship with time—not as a resource to be controlled but as a rhythm to honor—we can find a path back to harmony. The clock will continue to tick, but the choice remains: to race against it or to move with the natural flow of life.
note: emphasis and image by the editor and not by the author
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Pavan Vyas is a social entrepreneur, farmer, and yoga teacher, Pavan is an individual trying to find the meaning of life by various means. He runs his climate action start-up Van One (Instagram), trying to be one with Van (Forest in Hindi). You can connect with him here. He is a participant of the Samanvaya Hind Swaraj cohort 2024.
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Notes:
[1] Huygens, C. (1673). Horologium Oscillatorium (The Pendulum Clock)
[2] Dohrn-van Rossum, G. (1996). History of the Hour: Clocks and Modern Temporal Orders
[3] https://www.academia.edu/86488021/Measures_of_time_in_ancient_India
[4] https://www.gresham.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2018-01-23_AlisterMcGrath_TheClockworkGod.pdf
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_universe
[6] Clocks and the Scientific Revolution: Landes, D. S. (1983). Revolution in Time: Clocks and the Making of the Modern World