Sleep Inequality & The 24/7 Capitalist Body: A Sociological Review of Rest, Power & Time Discipline

Abstract

Sleep is biologically universal but profoundly socially stratified. This critical narrative review interrogates how late capitalist time regimes structurally produce, legitimize, and medicalize sleep inequality. Moving beyond biomedical individualism, the analysis integrates Marxist political economy, Foucauldian biopolitics, critical time sociology, and intersectional frameworks to position rest as a contested site of power and social reproduction. Synthesizing contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship from 2000 to 2026, the review traces how algorithmic scheduling, digital tethering, and just-in-time labor erode temporal autonomy, particularly for marginalized workers bearing intersecting structural class, race, and gender burdens. The paper introduces temporal extraction as a mid-range concept to explain how capital systematically appropriates non-work hours and circadian stability, transforming biological necessity into a depleted resource. Despite growing wellness commodification, structural determinants of sleep deprivation remain under-theorized, while resistance and collective temporal sovereignty are marginalized in extant literature. The review concludes by advocating for binding labor protections, participatory scheduling, and rest-positive institutional cultures. By reframing sleep as a cornerstone of temporal justice, this critical analysis provides sociologists and policymakers with a diagnostic lens to dismantle twenty-four-seven exploitation and reclaim rest as a fundamental democratic right.