Locator: 49545ECONOMY.
AI prompt: in The History of Palo Alto, Malcolm Harris talks about Sutter's bell and "time as money" as huge, huge change in global economy. If that's accurate, "time is money," what would be a pithy explanation for what explained the global economy before it was based on "time"?
Reply (ChatGPT):
A good pithy contrast is this:
Before time became money, the global economy ran on things, not seconds.Interpretation:
- wealth came from land, labor, and control of resources, not from the speed of production.
- value was measured in what you had (grain, silver, tribute, land, subjects), not in how fast you could make or move it.
- economic power came from ownership and extraction, not efficiency.
Or in one line:
A few alternative punch formulations:
- “Before time was money, wealth was possession — not productivity.”
- “The old economy valued land; the new economy valued speed.”
- “Before clocks ruled commerce, nature set the pace.”
- “Before time became capital, wealth was static — not kinetic.”
- “The pre-clock economy was about owning; the clock economy is about doing.”
Great example:
- “Before clocks ruled commerce, nature set the pace.”
Example: pre-gold-rush California Ahlone Indians "moved" with the seasons and moved in time with the sun (on a daily basis and on a yearly solar basis).
With Sutter, Indians "moved" when Sutter's bell rang. The time of day, the month, the season became less important.
It's coincidental that I'm reading this book while studying the movie Chinatown. It's amazing how it all intersects and how it fills a void in my educational background.
