“We are living through a time when our obsession with short-termism has become truly pathological,” she explained. “That is not to say that short-term responses are to be condemned, quite the opposite. Many situations actually require an immediate response, depending on certain types of risk, but this immediacy has become a real fixation, which must absolutely be counterbalanced with long-term management strategies.”

How can leaders of a company plan for its future if they believe they are already in it? Inès Léonarduzzi gave the example of Wales, a country whose political authorities always leave an empty seat when they gather together, representing future generations. The same practice is also used by some Indigenous peoples of the Americas who also enforce an empty chair policy at their meetings so that all decisions take into account the people who may not be born yet but who will be affected by their consequences. 

“These Indigenous communities stand out because they have a different relationship with the world, as they do with nature, and have a different view of the concept of the individual,” added Inès Léonarduzzi. “In our societies, we often repeat that no individual is irreplaceable, focusing instead on the end goal. But is it not true to say, as Jankélévitch argued, that each individual is in fact irreplaceable? What really matters is not the act itself, but the person behind it. Far from being conceited, this view recognises that, while an individual is an infirm entity in the wider universe, each person occupies their own irreplaceable space within it. It is this paradigm shift that we must focus on, forgetting yesterday’s solutions for today’s problems and combining the long and short term if we want time, our greatest luxury, to be kind to us.”

Does Inès Léonarduzzi believe that we need to adapt our perception of time to the cycles of the natural world? “It’s interesting to note that in horological history, the first timepieces made in the 14^th century only displayed the hour,” she remarked. “Technical progress then made it possible to display minutes and seconds. Following that logic, people who buy luxury watches today feel as if they own time, whereas people who buy a cheap electronic model tend to feel more like its slave. These differing perspectives show that our relationship with time is complex and that the concept of it as a long-lasting resource, and the timelessness conveyed by the luxury industry, should be tapped into if we are to prioritise long-term thinking.”