Abstract (EN)

The paper aims at providing a Yes answer to the question posed in its title. The current way in whichtime is socially distributed is a major obstacle to the democratization of contemporary societies, asequal access to government authorities and public services is largely determined by the amount of timecitizens have at their disposal. Paradoxically, we spend much of our lives working in order to financethrough taxes political and administrative activities that we could for the most part exercise ourselves,yet from which we are excluded because of the rationing of disposable political time and the liberalbureaucratic constitution of the state. The reduction of working time should thus be seen as having adistinct political goal: the development of participatory democracy. This objective is all the moreinteresting in that it does not necessarily imply lower salaries or re-investable profit. All that isrequired is that reduced working hours be matched by tax cuts accompanied by corresponding cuts inpublic spending. The latter, in turn, would be offset by increased civic involvement in political activity and public services. Indeed, monetary taxes paid for by additional labor in a capitalist economy can beat least partially replaced by transferring work hours to hours spent on civic activities. But wouldn’tthis amount to restoring the corvée—the unpaid labor that peasants in Old Regime France andelsewhere owed the state—whereas monetary taxes represented an emancipation from suchobligations? In the paper we will show that the answer to this question is No.