"Time for Things seeks an answer to the question of why, in mature industrial capitalist societies, increasing productivity has tended to get used to increase output and consumption as opposed to reducing the burden of work. Put simply, why do we live in a world so full of goods, many of which have questionable or marginal value, and (by comparison) so lacking in free time?"--.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. The Puzzle
• Chapter 3. Empirical Pattern in the United States
• Chapter 4. A Theory of Mass Consumption as Wage-Labor Commensuration
• Chapter 5. Economic Fairness and the Wage Labor Background
• Chapter 6. Standardization of Consumption, Work, and Wages
• Chapter 7. Standardizing Utility: Brands and Commercial and Legal Warranties
• Chapter 8. Product Testing and Product Regularization
• Chapter 9. Moral Panic about Utility: Planned Obsolescence
• Chapter 10. Conclusion: Capitalism, Commensuration, and the Normativity of Economic Action
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Notes
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Index