Movie Monday: In Time

Last week I claimed that most science fiction is auspiciously silent on the issue of money. Shortly after that a close friend of mine brought to my attention this film staring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried from 2011. In this film humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25, but after they only live for 1 more year unless they acquire more time through commerce. In this world time is literally money, which ticks away on a digital readout embedded in everybody’s wrist, and can be transferred from one person to another by a simple handshake. It’s an interesting and innovative take on the concept of sci-fi money, which is enough to make the film worth watching. But the irresponsible message it sends about money and commerce deserves a thorough audit.

Somebody had a lot of fun designing this world. The terminology strewn throughout the film were amusing. Cities are called “time zones.” Cops are called “time keepers.” Loan offices are called “time shares.” Even the economic center of this world is called “New Greenwich.” You know, like “Greenwich mean time.” If you let it, watching for these puns will keep you entertained.

The drama begins to unfold when suicidal would-be immortal, Henry Hamilton from New Greenwich gives over a hundred years to a broke factory worker named Will Salas who has rarely seen more than a day in life. He tells Will, “Why do you think taxes and prices go up on the same day in the ghetto? Cost of living keeps rising to make sure people keep dying.” The common refrain from then on becomes, “For a few to be immortal many must die.”

The rest of the film is your basic Marxist Robin Hood story. The poor guy from the ghetto falls for the rich girl (Silvia Weis) and they generously redistribute Daddy’s wealth… by force if necessary. And it contains all the typical Marxist hits on free markets. When Time Tycoon Philippe Weis asks his daughter, “You’d steal from your own father?” she replies, “it’s not stealing if it’s already stolen.” Will tells the Timekeeper that’s after him that if he’s looking for stolen time he should arrest the rich. During a poker game Philippe even calls their economic system “Darwinian Capitalism” insisting that the time currency is simply a direct application of the survival of the fittest. But viewed another way, even though the writer obviously didn’t intend it, the film is a much stronger critique of economic central planning, not capitalism.

For starters, despite the film’s numerous references to evolution and Darwin, the species is generically engineered. We’ll never evolve to have a glowing neon green 1 year death clock digitally embedded in our wrists. This is an innovation that could only be imposed upon mankind by the state. We know this because of the uniformity of it. Free markets produce diversity. Only centrally planned economies produce poorly calculated uniformity. If capitalism ever produced a genetically perpetual 25 year old the market would probably pass on the whole death clock thing. We also know it’s a centrally planned economy because there’s almost no advertisements. Other than the 99 second store, and a single beer billboard there were no logos, no marques, no marketing of any kind. No advertisements means no choices. No choices means central planning.

By all appearances most people in the ghetto work in the same unmarked factory producing cartridges that store time. These cartridges are the same in every time zone. Children in the ghetto use the same cartridges to beg for spare minutes as Phillipe Weis uses to store a million years in his vault. Again, uniformity. So, we know that the factor is run by the state, not the capitalists. The final reason we know it’s a centrally planned economy and not a free market is how stagnant all other technology is. There are characters in the film over a hundred years old, yet other than the time keeping technology there has been no other innovation. They drive the same cars. They shoot the same guns. They wear the same fashions. Only a centrally planned economy can stifle progress to that degree.

The other thing that is obvious but never expressed is that the state is the institution keeping the poor in poverty. It’s as easy to see as examining prices. In Dayton, where Will is from, coffee costs 4 minutes, a 6 pack costs 1 hour, and rent costs 8 days. The “Mean Time” in Dayton, according the central Time Keeper agency is 1 day and seven hours per person. And yet the toll to get in or out of Dayton is 1 month. In New Greenwich a standard hotel room costs 2 months, a light breakfast costs 8 and half weeks and the poker tables are no limit. The toll to get in or out of New Greenwich is one year. So… who sets the tolls? Is it the state or the capitalists? A ghetto where the toll to leave costs more than three months rent is a labor camp, and by all appearances the labor works for the state. But this is never mentioned. Instead it’s the rich guy’s fault… who neither sets the tolls, nor raises the taxes. His crime is, as he puts it, “coming from time.” Without these tolls, which are just economic barriers to trade, money would cross boarders and markets would seek equilibrium.

Bottom line, the math in the film is totally screw ball. The time Marxists keep implying that if they redistribute the wealth everyone can live a full life. They never suggest everyone can live forever, but Hamilton says, “There’s more than enough. No one has to die before their time.” But that’s simply not true. Based on their own math without commerce everyone dies at 26, which means no one lives long enough to raise a 25 year old.

The fundamental fallacy committed by the economics in this film is that commerce must be a zero sum game, and it’s simply not true. In the film, just as in the world, the state manufactures poverty with artificial scarcity.

You can watch it for free here.
http://freeagemovies.com/watch-in-time-full-movie-2011-online-free

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