INTERNATIONAL MAX PLANCK RESEARCH SCHOOL on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy Köln, Germany Marcin Serafin The Temporal Structures of the Economy The Working Day of Taxi Drivers in Warsaw Studies on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy Marcin Serafin The Temporal Structures of the Economy The Working Day of Taxi Drivers in Warsaw © Marcin Serafin, 2016 Published by IMPRS-SPCE International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy, Cologne http://imprs.mpifg.de ISBN: 978-3-946416-14-2 DOI: 10.17617/2.2218692 Studies on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy are published online on http://imprs.mpifg.de. Go to Dissertation Series. Studies on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy Abstract Why do taxi drivers work when they work? Unlike those in many other occu- pations, taxi drivers do not have fixed working hours. This raises the ques- tion of what influences their working time. Based on a combination of quali- tative and quantitative research conducted in Warsaw between November 2012 and June 2013, this dissertation argues that the working time of War- saw taxi drivers is anchored in four “temporal structures”: earning time, waiting time, political time and domestic time. First, taxi drivers’ working time is dependent on the demand for their service, which structures their earning time. I argue that, since taxi drivers are coordinating agencies, their earning time is dependent on multiple superior coordination agencies that make up the multi-layered temporal architecture of Warsaw. Such agencies include the religious calendar and the state calendar. Second, taxi drivers’ working time is shaped by a temporal structure of waiting time. I trace the origin of this structure, showing how waiting time is linked to the emer- gence of capitalism in Poland in 1989. However, while the introduction of capitalism created the structural conditions for waiting time, I argue that waiting time is reproduced every day as taxi drivers have to cope with the uncertainty of demand for their service. Third, taxi drivers’ working time is anchored in political time since they try collectively to improve their working conditions through voice. I distinguish between different forms of voice, showing how and why the political actions of taxi drivers have been largely unsuccessful. Finally, taxi drivers work when they work because of a tempo- ral structure of domestic time. Taxi drivers’ working time is shaped by the temporal order of their family life, which is often in conflict with the rhythm of the market. I describe how the gendered nature of domestic time, charac- terized by an unequal division of household labour, enables male taxi drivers to work long hours. By providing an explanation for taxi drivers’ working time, which highlights the temporal dimension of social life, this dissertation shows the need for economic sociology to study the impact of time on eco- nomic practices. About the author Marcin Serafin was a doctoral researcher at the IMPRS-SPCE from 2011 to 2015. He currently is a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. [email protected] Studies on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy The Temporal Structures of the Economy: The Working Day of Taxi Drivers in Warsaw Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Wirtschafts-und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln 2015 vorgelegt von Marcin Serafin aus Stockholm, Schweden 1 Referent: Prof. Dr. Jens Beckert Korreferent: Prof. Dr. Clemens Kroneberg Tag der Promotion: 2 “Sociology is the qualitative and discontinuous typology based on the dialectic of the total social phenomena in all their astructural, structurable and structured manifestations. It studies all the depth levels, scales and the sectors directly with the aim of following their movements of structuration, destructuration and restructuration and rupture, finding their explanation in collaboration with history. If a shorter definition is desired, it could be said that sociology is a science which studies total social phenomena as a totality of their aspects and their movements, capturing them in a dialectic of microsocial, group and global types, in the process of becoming and disintegrating. Out of this dynamic conception of sociology, emerges the problem of time in which the life of the social framework, total social phenomena and their products, and particularly their structures unfolds. This problem is absolutely primary to sociology. The social structures themselves are not stable, but are discovered, on the contrary, to be involved in a perpetual movement. Moreover, the scale of social time wherein they move is very often divergent from the time scale in which the subjacent total social phenomena live.” Georges Gurvitch, The Spectrum of Social Time (1964: 11, emphasis in original) 3 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION: ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY .................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1. TIME AND WORK IN SOCIAL LIFE ..................................................... 13 1.1 TIME IN SOCIAL LIFE .................................................................................................... 13 1.1.1 Concepts of Social Time........................................................................................ 14 1.1.2 Time of Action ...................................................................................................... 16 1.1.3 Time in Action ...................................................................................................... 18 1.1.4 Action as Process.................................................................................................. 20 1.1.5 The Temporal Order of Markets............................................................................ 27 1.1.6 Time in Taxi Markets and Other Linking Ecologies ............................................... 34 1.2 WORK AND ACTION: DEFINING WORKING TIME ............................................................ 35 CHAPTER 2. WORKING TIME AS A TOTAL SOCIAL FACT ..................................... 40 2.1 CASE SELECTION .......................................................................................................... 43 2.2 METHODS .................................................................................................................... 44 2.2.1 QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS AND PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION ..................................... 46 2.2.2 QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................ 47 CHAPTER 3. EARNING TIME: THE TEMPORAL STRUCTURES OF THE DEMAND FOR TAXIS ...................................................................................................... 50 3.1 TIME, TAXIS AND COORDINATING AGENCIES ................................................................ 51 3.2 TAXIS AND THE TEMPORAL ARCHITECTURE OF SOCIAL LIFE.......................................... 53 3.3 MARKET EXCHANGE AS A PROCESS AND CONFLICTS OVER SPEED ................................. 56 3.4 MULTIPLE CYCLES OF DEMAND .................................................................................... 62 3.4.1 The Daily Cycle of Demand .................................................................................. 63 3.4.2 The Weekly Cycle of Demand ................................................................................ 69 3.4.3 The Annual Cycle of Demand................................................................................ 72 3.5 THE STATE, PUBLIC TIME AND SOCIAL MAGIC .............................................................. 73 3.6 DEMAND CYCLES AND CAPITALIST DYNAMICS ............................................................. 81 3.7 CONCLUSION: THE TEMPORAL STRUCTURES OF DEMAND FOR TAXIS ............................... 82 CHAPTER 4. WAITING TIME: THE MACROFOUNDATIONS OF SUPPLY AND THE TEMPORAL STRUCTURES OF SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM ................... 84 4.2 SHORTAGE OF SUPPLY IN THE SOCIALIST SYSTEM (1945 – 1989) ................................... 86 4.2.1 The Socialist System and the Economy of Shortage ............................................... 92 4.2.2 The Encoding of 1945 – 1989 in the Present ......................................................... 99 4.3 DEREGULATION AND SURGE OF SUPPLY (1989 – 1992)................................................ 101 4.3.1 Encoding of 1989-1992 in the Present ................................................................ 104 4.4. SURPLUS SUPPLY OF CAPITALISM (1992 – 2014) ........................................................ 105 4.4.1. Capitalism as a System of Surplus Supply .......................................................... 107 4.5 CONCLUSION: THE MACROFOUNDATIONS OF WAITING TIME ....................................... 111 4 CHAPTER 5. WAITING TIME: THE MICROFOUNDATIONS OF SUPPLY AND THE TEMPORAL STUCTURES OF THE TAXI MARKET ................................................ 113 5.1. FISHING FOR CUSTOMERS: THE TEMPORAL DIMENSION OF UNCERTAINTY .................. 114 5.2 TEMPORAL STRUCTURE AND EXPERIENCE OF DEMAND ............................................... 117 5.3 UNCERTAINTY AND LABOUR STRATEGIES ................................................................... 119 5.4 COPING WITH UNCERTAINTY THROUGH ROUTINES .....................................................