Speed, Wealth and Power

In many of his texts French cultural critic, city planner and philosopher Paul Virilio emphasises that speed is not a phenomenon, but a relation between phenomena. The difference between contemporary society and societies of the past consists in the fact that earlier speed used to be mainly connected with transport, now it concerns relations within information. The question of speed is central. Speed and wealth go hand in hand. To give a philosophical definition of speed, we can say that it is not a phenomenon, but rather the relationship between phenomena. In other words, it is relativity itself. Virilio’s influential books analyses new problems resulting from the fact that the development of industrial capitalism has reached the stage in which wealth and power in society have been interconnected with ever increasing speed. In view of Virilio’s statement that wealth is an aspect of speed it has become necessary to consider speed and all its aspects and consequences through a prism of a new discipline – dromology. Dromology originates from the Greek word dromos. Hence dromology is the science of the ride, the journey, the drive, the way. This means that speed and riches are totally linked concepts. And that the history of the world is not only about the political economy of riches, that is, wealth, money, capital, but also about political economy of speed. Text analyzes the two main themes. Firstly, the treatise attempts at an philosophical analysis of – dromology. Dromologic revolutions cause artificial acceleration of speed in the form of steam or combustion engine, or, nowadays, nuclear energy and they immediately form both e.g. waging wars and kinds of communication. The second part of the study discusses the difference between contemporary society and societies of the past. Vehicles of speed create new dromospheric chronology, new tracks and nodal points (ports, roads, airports, telecommunications etc.) through which things, goods, money, weapons, people or information will start flowing within a different structure.