Hadn't read E. P. Thompson's famous 1967 article on "Time-Discipline" in a while and was surprised by the ending. Not the famous, widely quoted, first part, which says: "For there is no such thing as economic growth which is not, at the same time, growth or change of a culture"/1
The end of the sentence, however, surprised me: "and the growth of social consciousness, like the growth of a poet's mind, can never, in the last analysis, be planned." /2
Is this a nod to Hayek? An attempt to subvert him by referring to the "poet" rather than the bureaucrat? An attempt to show that social movements arising under capitalism, like Hayek's "price system" also proceed in unpredictable ways? /3
Most likely, it's also a subtle dig at the theories of change promoted by the communism that he had left behind in the previous decade. /4
Is it declaration (perhaps too strong a word) in favor of a New Left reading of history and politics? /5
