In his view, acceleration destroys space and compresses time in ways of perceiving reality. Virilio describes velocity as the hidden factor in wealth and power, where historical eras and political events are effectively speed-ratios. In Speed and Politics, Virilio coined the term dromology to describe the study of 'speed-space'. This new other time is that of electronic transmission, of high-tech machines, and therefore, man is present in this sort of time, not via his physical presence, but via programming' (qtd. Time–space compression occurs as a result of technological innovations driven by the global expansion of capital that condense or elide spatial and temporal distances, including technologies of communication ( telegraph, telephones, fax machines, Internet) and travel (rail, cars, trains, jets), driven by the need to overcome spatial barriers, open up new markets, speed up production cycles, and reduce the turnover time of capital.Īccording to Paul Virilio, time-space compression is an essential facet of capitalist life, saying that 'we are entering a space which is speed-space. A similar idea was proposed by Elmar Altvater in an article in PROKLA in 1987, translated into English as 'Ecological and Economic Modalities of Time and Space' and published in Capitalism Nature Socialism in 1990. It is rooted in Karl Marx's theory of the 'annihilation of space by time' originally elaborated in the Grundrisse, and was later articulated by Marxist geographer David Harvey in his book The Condition of Postmodernity. Time–space compression (also known as space–time compression and time–space distanciation) is an idea referring to the altering of the qualities of space–time and the relationship between space and time that is a consequence of the expansion of capital.

Time space compression article