MODERNIZATION, GENERATIONAL RELATIONS AND THE ECONOMY OF LIFE TIME - SOCIAL FORMS AND GENERATIONS IN THE POLISH PEASANT

Modern societies distinguish themselves through continuing, canted soc ial change; through ''progress''. The more rapid and comprehensive the process of modernization, the greater the distance between the past a nd the future becomes. From generation to generation, people enter int o different life situations and life worlds from which they draw gener ation specific experiences. Thomas and Znaniecki's The Polish Peasant in Europe and America is a classical study of generation specific life situations and life worlds under conditions of high speed modernizati on and of the resulting generational relations, life courses and biogr aphies. But The Polish Peasant is not only a prime example of a phenom enological description of the life worlds of generations. A further, t heoretically interesting element of biographical modernization can als o be found in this material: the economy of time. The individual and c ollective allocation of time across the life course - human capital, l abor market participation, consumption - occurs under different condit ions and experiences from generation to generation. The rational econo mization and budgeting of life time grows in the progress of economic and legal equality in democratic and market-oriented western industria l societies. Economic calculations of the allocation of time did of co urse not remain restricted to the areas of e. g. education and work, t hey also invaded the private sphere and changed the norms of biographi cal normality and solidarity.