Yesterday, I had the unique experience of watching the science fiction blockbuster, In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried. The plot is built around a future where everyone is genetically engineered to stop aging at the age of 25, and time becomes the currency. Starting on their 25th birthday, everyone is given one year of time that can be used to make purchases, and individuals can earn more time by working. The basic framework of the society is as follows:
- Time is a scarce resource (This is established in the film through lines such as: “Everyone can’t live forever, where would you put them?” and “For a few to be immortal, many must die.”)
- Immortality is possible as long as an individual can gain access to more time
- Everyone automatically dies if their clock hits zero
- There is an inequitable distribution of “Time wealth,” where some live day-to-day (literally) and others have eons of time at their disposal
- A burdensome regressive tax exists to ensure that the poor can never build up “Time wealth.” This presents itself in the form of both explicit taxes and implicit taxation through price increases that raise the cost of living. This engineered inflation encourages the poor to die off at a very young age.
- There is no unemployment, because if you don’t work you die. This places the cost of labor at rock bottom and further increases the wealth of the upper classes that own all of the businesses.
SPOILER ALERT!: The protagonist, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), is deeply bothered by the income disparity and, when an altruistic stranger gives him over a century of time, he and Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) set out to correct the imbalance. They attempt to do this by enacting a Robin-Hood-like plan of stealing time from time banks and then redistributing it among the poor. This move represents an unrefined version of fiscal policy that champions the idea of the rich paying their “fair share” so that the poor can have an honest shot at a full life.
Despite the fact that the movie is poorly written, has painfully obvious political motive, and the acting is borderline atrocious, I would recommend this movie to economics students. On a conceptual level, it is a fascinating case study on income redistribution and a unique (albeit unrealistic) economic structure. Maybe we could even watch it in class…. (hint, hint)
Outside sources and interesting posts about “In Time”:
I'm open to the idea of movie day. How long is it? How would we get it into the classroom?
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