Economics Found in a Fictional Movie, Research Paper Example

Economics is everywhere, even in fictional literature. A society cannot function without some form of economic concepts governing them. Factors of economics are necessary for any kind of story to flow whether fact or fiction. Such economic factors include land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurs. These however are just the factors of production. With production of goods comes supply and demand. There needs to be a constant demand for either goods or services in order to keep the production factors supplying these goods and services to satisfy these demands. In turn, the manufacturers of the goods and services receive revenue. Cost of goods sold is then subtracted from the revenue and what is left is profit. Profit comes in the form of a currency. There are various currencies throughout the world such as the US Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, Mexican Peso, or Chinese Yuan. When supply and demand circulates on a global scale, different currencies will be used to generate the revenue. This is where currency conversion and exchange rates come in.

Perhaps one day in the not so distant future, there will be a single, universal unit of currency. This may make global economic run more smoothly, or it may be disastrous. These economic concepts are strongly portrayed in the 2011 motion picture In Time.

The 2011 motion picture In Time takes place in the year 2169 where money no longer exists and time has become the universal currency. The world became overpopulated and as a way to control it, the government utilized technology to biologically manipulate human DNA into decommissioning—or killing—a person once they reach the age of 25. A person may live past 25 but only if they hold more time currency on their life line. Only the wealthy and politically powerful citizens of dystopian city New Greenwich hold enough time to live for millenniums as they don’t age physically past 25 making them virtually immortal. Citizens of the general population must work laboriously for time currency equivalent to what nickels and dimes are today if they wish to live past 25.

Will Salas of general population working for minutes, crosses paths with the wealthy Henry Hamilton. Henry reveals to Will that there is enough time in the world for everyone to live a long life and that New Greenwich hoards all of it so that only they may live forever. Suicidal, Henry grants Will the rest of his time which is over a century. Will opts to use his gift from Henry to infiltrate New Greenwich and tear down their regime.

Now there are a great number of economic factors throughout the movie integrated into this story line. Firstly, the controversial issue of world over-population is immediately addressed in the movie. There are various economic debates of whether or not the world is really over-populated, but in the economic analysis of In Time, over-population was a real issue and something had to be done about it. The idea of making biological time the universal unit of currency drove a strong wedge between economic classes.

This is where the issue of income inequality is addressed. Income inequality is the uneven dissemination of income amongst workers across an economy. Workers are divided into classes based on income; lower class, middle class, and upper class, where upper class generates the most income. An economic concept of occupational classification defines two types of workers, blue collar and white collar. Blue collar workers perform manual labor, and usually pay by the hour. Although most blue collar jobs don’t require a high level skill set such as a college degree, some blue collar work requires certain experience and certifications such requirements possessed by a plumber or electrician. White collar work involves employees performing highly skilled duties set in an office environment, where they usually earn an annual salary. Most white collar work requires a higher level of education or demanding certifications, such as that of a lawyer or a certified public accountant.

This is portrayed in the movie as the wealthy, privileged, white collar citizens of New Greenwich held a ridiculous amount of time currency while the middle class blue collar citizens had to work minimum wage jobs in hopes to live past the age of 25. Although fictional, this scenario in the movie emphasizes on the wage gap today’s economy. The top 10% of earners make significantly higher amounts of money than their middle class counter parts. This is the effects of living in a capitalist society. Much of crime in the economy is influenced from not making enough money working a minimum wage job. Economists claim that the top 10% of earners should have salary cuts in order to raise minimum wage. However as minimum wage rises, everything else will raise with it because costs of production will increase. This raises prices on all products in the economy; a process known as inflation. These economic scenarios require a lot of complex analysis, but this is just the economic foundation of what is being portrayed in the movie.

At the end of the movie, Will Salas breaks into a bank vault containing a virtually limitless amount of time currency. Total chaos is induced into the economy and the time becomes a free for all for the middle class citizens. Hopefully such a thing never happens in the real world economy, but it is clear in the movie and in economic research that over-population and income inequality need to be addresses.