Asset-Based Futures: A Sociology for the 21st Century

Abstract

This article engages with the question of whether the COVID-19 pandemic can be understood as an event that is moving us towards a new era. Highlighting the paradox that this question has emerged in the context of the stoppages and shutdowns associated with the pandemic, we suggest that any assessment of social change and the futures such change might unfold must be situated on the terrain formatted by the temporal logics of capitalism. At our current juncture this requires that sociology as a discipline understand these logics as asset rather than commodity based. Drawing on state responses to the pandemic in Australia, we show how mundane payments play a critical role in these logics, operating as differentiating technologies of time. We suggest that for sociology to build a sociology of futures that is relevant for the 21st century, it must come to terms with the time machine of the asset economy.