What if our time of death was written on our arms?
The film “In Time” is set maybe 100 years into the future. The human race has been genetically altered to stop aging at 25. After that, a clock on people’s arms counts down the hours, minutes and seconds to death. When the clock reaches 0, the person ‘times out’ and dies. To live another day, people need to earn more time. To buy things, people pay in time. If they don’t have enough time, they go to a time lender, who charges them exorbitant interest rates. Time is the universal currency. It literally is money.
Society is deeply segregated. Cities are divided into sections, with the time-poor living in ghettos far away from the time-rich. The poor do everything at speed, knowing how little time they have left. They are entirely absorbed with getting through the seconds, minutes and hours of the day. The rich operate at a leisurely pace, knowing that they have the luxury of time. Some have over 100 years on the clock. They think of the future and all that it might bring. And in order to curb the growth of the (poor) population, the rich sporadically increase the cost of living. They engineer inflation. The result is that the poor run out of time more quickly. And die. Time inequality kills.
It’s impossible to watch the film and not think about all of the parallels to our deeply divided country today.
We know that it is not too strong a statement to say that income inequality kills. More unequal societies have worse outcomes. In their seminal book, “The Spirit Level“, Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson systematically demonstrate that higher levels of inequality are associated with poorer health outcomes, more homicides and lower life expectancy. Here in the US, the average person will die at age 79 (in the poorest parts of Baltimore, it’s 65). Compare that to, say, Norway, which has much lower levels of inequality and where the average person will live to be around 81.
More unequal societies are also associated with a lower social consensus, so it becomes more difficult to pass policies that would help struggling groups. Those not in need are unable to understand the ‘greater good’ impact of helping those that are hard up. After the last financial crisis for example, countries with higher levels of inequality recovered more slowly because they were not able to implement rapid redistribution policies without backlash. To use the visual from “In Time”, the land of the rich is just too far from the land of the poor.
We also know that when people face a shortage of any kind — time, money — they focus entirely on meeting that need. As Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir have shown, those experiencing a scarcity problem ‘tunnel’, putting all of their energy into solving the shortage — how am I going to get food on the table today? — at the expense of everything else, like their health or education or children. In part, that is because dealing with the immediate need takes up a lot of mental energy. By exhausting themselves, those who are time or money poor don’t have the capacity to engage in long-term thinking. They become biased towards the present. That’s why they borrow from a money lender at crazy interest rates. They need $100 today. A repayment rate of $5 is perfectly doable on a week to week basis, even if the overall amount to be repaid will end up being $300.*
But the film also got me thinking. People are still bickering about the facts on inequality even as it continues to grow rapidly in San Francisco, and beyond. Would we act any differently if our fate was written on our arms? Would we have a stronger consensus for change if we could really see how much of our population is struggling to get by? Not just the poorest and homeless, destined to die earlier. But those who are living on the edge, one shock away from falling into destitution. And those just above them. The teachers and nurses whose pay has not kept up with the cost of living. Or the discrimination experienced by women, minority ethnic groups or the LGBT community.
We may not have the technology for time stamps… yet. But we do have the ability to create a central database of facts. Unbiased public media. Political debates that are elevated from rhetoric to substantive discussion. All of these are within our power. If we could see — really see — inequality, then maybe we could finally take a step forward in addressing it.
*As Richard Thaler points out, we are all guilty of both present bias (like wanting a small amount of money today even if we could get a larger amount by waiting until tomorrow) and a lack of self control (the ability to say no to an extra helping of dessert!). It’s what makes us human. He gave a great speech last week here in San Francisco on exactly this topic, which is well worth watching (if you receive my weekly newsletter or follow me on Twitter, you’ll already know about it). But poverty exacerbates these general human tendencies, because of its impact on our material needs and mental energy, increasing both the likelihood and impact.
Originally published at tellingtimes.me on January 13, 2016.
