Die Verflüssigung von Grenzen: Recht, Uhrzeit und Geld wider Raum und Materie

Abstract

The history of human communities in terms of their "border regime" can be considered tripartite. At first, societies saw themselves as unique, and their edges were the end of their world, surrounded by "barbarians". Under the influence of ever-increasing trade and equalisation of human beings and populations on either side of the edges, the latter have been transformed into national boundaries. This second era is currently in transition to a third epoch, as the continuous globalisation of societies is going along with their atomisation and liquefaction. As entrepreneurs of ourselves, we are more and more supposed to manage our solitary existence ourselves. Law, clock and money are a tempting basis for this, because they do not prescribe nor prohibit any activity, but simply - and all the more relentlessly - establish a framework for individual action. Their limits progressively supplement collective delineations of human life (birth and residence, gender, religion, profession, etc.).