Surprisingly, In Time, is another recent major motion picture that grants the mainstream audience a view into the bowels of the banking system and the inner workings of fiat currency.
In this world, genetic alteration has allowed humanity to develop a system where individuals stop aging 25 years after birth. Time has replaced money as the standard currency and people must acquire more time through labor and commercial means after turning 25 years of age, or die within an year. Those who are able to manipulate the system live in the luxurious New Greenwich and raise the time price of every necessity as an inflation tax to keep the lower classes at bay.
One can quickly see the similarities covering the last one hundred years of fractional reserve banking albeit in a rapid form to satisfy this caffeine fueled modern world of necessity with an inflation calculator on your wrist as a watch.
The film continues on a neo-Jacksonian adrenaline filled journey to alter the entire system.
Writer/director Andrew Niccol is not unfamiliar with libertarian themes as he has worked on such films as Gattaca, The Truman Show, The Terminal, and Lord of War.
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Man, talk about a true ‘pure time theory of credit’.
I think you’re being incredibly optimistic with this interpretation of the film. The slant seemed incredibly Marxist to me, viewing labor as being exploited by the 1%, “property is theft” justifying their stealinlg of the rich’s property, and so on.
Clearly it was a world-building exercise with certain (ludicrous) rules and limitations to create a clear marxist critique of capitalism. To try and pretend this is somehow targeted at “bankers” in some quasi-austrian fashion is hopelessly naive.
You obviously have never actually seen the film. Not to give away any spoils, but the banking system is the entire target of the film.
I have seen the film. Yes, the bankers are the “evil” ones, but I highly doubt this was due to some Austrian influenced commentary on evils of fractional reserve banking. This was an outright marxist critique of wealth as such, and the strong suggestion (stated outright at several points in the film) that the property of the rich was theft… not due to their profession, but due to them being rich period.
If you want to interpret it via a rose-tinted austrian viewpoint, go right ahead, but rest assured that the filmmaker’s intent and the interpretation of 99% of the audience (no pun intended) will be of a distinctly different philosophy.
I actually totally agree with him… and I actually saw the film
The “austrian” interpretation of this film would make sense if there was any sort of description of how the banking system transfers “time” from the poor to the rich (through some sort of “time inflation”). However, no explanation is given. The viewer is only left with the conclusion that the wealthy in society exist by exploiting the working classes. Nowhere in the movie does it show wealthy people creating value appropriate for the resources they possess.. all we see do is party, drink, and conspire to commit evil. The writers obviously believe that wealthy individuals are of no value to society, and that they can only obtain wealth by simultaneously banishing other individuals to grinding poverty.
It is time (pun intended) to admit that under our international fiat electronic money system “money” is NOT a store of value but only a government countersigned IOU for goods and services. Time to admit that the major economic statistic for wage earners is the total work hours needed to pay the monthly bills.
You started so well, then you just jumped into LTV, what the hell
Michael and Robert may be interested in Hans Hoppe’s lecture on Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis presented at the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s “Marx and Marxism” seminar held in New York City; 15-16 October 1988.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DIFVvrczXs
Or, his paper that is available here: https://mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_5.pdf
And, Sheldon Richman on Böhm-Bawerk and his own exploitation theory:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/austrian-exploitation-theory/
seen and read.
It’s one thing to discuss marxist exploitation theory, simliarities with austrian analysis, differences, etc.
It’s quite another to start desperately searching every lefty movie (and particularly egregious examples such as In Time) that Hollywood spews out for a possible forced Austrian spin.
If it’s gotten so bad that we have to resort to calling In Time austrian we might as well throw in the towel and praise Godard’s Week End as a paragon of libertarian virtue. Don’t confuse ecumenical efforts with tossing politically oriented artistic analysis out the window.
I must have missed where I stated it was Austrian at all. Is your reading comprehension so much greater than my writing apprehension?
Who is “we” by the way? You are a random “Michael” on the comment section of a website.
Godard’s Week End is quite brilliant in a certain light actually.
Another ad hominem followed in rapid succession by a veiled argument from authority. Classy.
I’ll address your one attempt at a ‘substantive’ argument:
“I must have missed where I stated it was Austrian at all.” You’re quite right, you never actually called the movie “Austrian”; I did however interpret it as an attempt at (erroneously) finding Austrian-minded themes in In Time.
I hope you can forgive me such an outlandish interpretation of your blog post. I must have been thrown off by it being posted on Mises.Org (Advancing the Scholarship of Liberty in the Tradition of the Austrian School), your mentions of fractional-reserve banking, inflation, the use of the term neo-Jacksonian, and associating Niccol with libertarian minded films (as you see them). Perhaps you’d be more comfortable if I substituted “libertarian” for “austrian” in my post criticizing yours?
Regardless, my point still stands.
Lastly, an aesthetic appreciation of Godard’s Week End has little to do with the topic at hand, a discussion on the relative political merits of different movies from an Austr- sorry, libertarian point of view. I found your attempt at linking In Time with Aust- (damnit I did it again), libertarianism weak to very weak.
Best,
random “Michael”
ps I just realized the first comment by random “Andrew” was a small joke in the Austrian vein regarding a pure time theory of credit. I hope you’ll forgive him his jest as well.
I never made an argumentum ad hominem or an argumentum ad verecundiam, my apologies if your post was in jest in the similar vein of Andrew.
His joke was quite hilarious, sorry if I did not understand your humor.
Perhaps it was all lost in translation.
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