Forget Karl Marx’s old saw about hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, and criticizing after dinner — for many, simply going to bed when we are tired and waking when we are rested is the stuff of utopian, post-capitalist fantasy. A hundred years after the United States adopted daylight savings time — a contrivance developed to extract maximum labor power from workers — we might indulge in some musings on how a different society would make time for workers.

Our world prioritizes profit above all else, and, unless we are wealthy enough...