Chapter 4 expands Chapter 3’s analysis of the value of time, focusing more closely on why time becomes such a ubiquitous proxy for process in transactions over rights and political power. Time becomes a medium for exchange in democratic politics because it is uniquely suited for processes in which incommensurable things are made commensurate. Time quantifies that which is qualitative and yet time is also connected to situated attachments such as nations and peoplehood. Time is also perceived as being more impartial and egalitarian than other variables with which we might measure fitness for citizenship and rights. Time is measured scientifically rather than by a potentially biased arbiter and we think of it as being available to all on bases unrelated to class, race, birthright, or other means that discriminate. Time becomes one variable in many equations that include other quantitative and qualitative variables, ultimately yielding rights. Examples include naturalization and prison sentencing formulae. In these and similar formulae, political time performs a role similar to that of time in what Marx called socially necessary labor time. It is the asituational exchange value that allows processes to be represented in political formulae for transactions over power and rights.