"The 'new towns' of the technological pseudo-pesantry are the clearest of indications, inscribed on the land, of the break with the historical time on which they are founded; their motto might well be: 'On this spot nothing will ever happen -- and nothing ever has.' Quite obviously, it is precisely because the liberation of history, which must take place in the cities, has not yet occurred, that the forces of historical absence have set about designing their own exclusive landscape there." [these 177]
"The spectacle, being the reigning social organization of a paralyzed history, of a paralyzed memory, of an abandonment of any history founded in historical time, is in effect a false consciousness of time." [thesis 158]
"The time of production, time-as-commodity, is an infinite accumulation of equivalent intervals. It is irreversible time made abstract: each segment must demonstrate by the clock its purely quantitative equality with all other segments." [thesis 147]
"Lastly, in those former colonies of black Africa that have maintained over ties to Western bourgeoisies, whether European or American, a local bourgeoisie is constituted -- generally reposing on the power of traditional tribal chiefs -- through possession of the State:in such countries, where foreign imperialism is still the true master of the economy, a stage is reached at which the compradors' compensation for the sale of local products is ownership of a local State that is independent of the masses though not of the imperialist power. The result is an artificial bourgeoisie that is incapable of accumulating capital and merely squanders its revenue ..." [thesis 113]
The Society of the Spetacle (1967)
Guy Debord
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