Pod Insights Planet Money The real horror of ‘Alien’ and how it explains why we’re not paid enough About this episode Maybe the real monster in the Alien franchise isn’t actually the killer alien. Because behind the acid blood and jump scares is an even more insidious horror: a single employer with unchecked power. That employer is named Weyland-Yutani, a mega-corporation that dominates workers across the galaxy.
Weyland-Yutani is a sort of extreme example of what economists call a monopsony — when one employer dominates a labor market and gains power to underpay and mistreat workers. Sure, it’s science fiction. But a growing number of economists argue that monopsony power is a much bigger deal in the real world than previously thought.
We watch scenes from the movie Alien with labor economist Arin Dube, whose new book, The Wage Standard, shines a spotlight on the problem of monopsony power in the modern economy. We ask Arin what policy ideas he has that would have maybe prevented the worker tragedy seen in Alien. And we use his answer to try and rewrite the movie (spoiler: the movie becomes much shorter and less exciting).
Plus, we speak with Fede Álvarez, the director and co-writer of Alien: Romulus, which puts Weyland-Yutani’s poor treatment of workers front row and center.
For more on monopsony and anti-trust:
The labor economics of 'Alien' — and its lessons for inequality on Earth https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/04/14/g-s1-117075/the-labor-economics-of-alien-and-its-lessons-for-inequality-on-earth (PM newsletter)The hidden power keeping wages low https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/04/21/g-s1-118071/the-hidden-power-keeping-wages-low (PM newsletter)Antitrust In America https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/20/704426033/antitrust-in-america (PM series)How we got free agents in baseball https://www.npr.org/2026/05/06/nx-s1-5812912/baseball-free-agency-curt-flood (PM episode)
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Today's episode of Planet Money was hosted by Greg Rosalsky and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 This episode's sponsor is HubSpot, which offers the following message. What if, instead of updating your CRM, your CRM updated you? HubSpot's self-updating CRM keeps your customer context current, so you can win more deals. Learn more at hubspot.com.
0:17 Speaker 01 You are about to hear some deeply troubling allegations, allegations about a company that we should say does not provide financial support for NPR. Here's our episode.
0:29 Speaker 02 This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:35 Speaker 01 We begin today with, I think, truly, one of the most chilling earnings calls I have ever heard.
0:40 Speaker 03 Really disturbing.
0:41 Speaker 01 And people should know, earnings calls generally, they're very, welcome to Q3.
0:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, profitability, costs, stuff like that.
0:48 Speaker 01 But in this call, they throw to the CEO, and it is very different here. You want to hear it?
0:53 Speaker 04 Bringing us to the earnings report on our deep space initiatives. Every corporation has a space fleet.
0:58 Speaker 03 Space fleet, of course. Every corporation has a space fleet.
1:01 Speaker 01 You know, space fleet is a weird way to put the pivot to space, I suppose. But like, you know, I kind of follow.
1:07 Speaker 04 But because we were there first, our profits have grown exponentially in less than a decade.
1:13 Speaker 01 I'm not a CEO coach, but like.
1:15 Speaker 03 I'd sound less cartoonishly evil, maybe?
1:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, to sound like a supervillain.
1:19 Speaker 04 This year, the first of our research vessels are scheduled to return. And with it, they'll bring back something that will keep our profits well ahead of everyone.
1:31 Speaker 03 Sounds like maybe a good investment. I'm not sure.
1:33 Speaker 01 Are you buy?
1:34 Speaker 03 I'm buy.
1:34 Speaker 01 On the Weyland-Yutani Company, Greg?
1:36 Speaker 03 I think so.
1:37 Speaker 01 Weyland-Yutani is a fictional company from the film franchise Alien.
1:43 Speaker 03 Alien.
1:43 Speaker 01 And Greg, in case people don't know, the thing they have found in outer space that will bring great profitability.
1:49 Speaker 03 Could it be a killer alien?
1:51 Speaker 01 Yes, double-mouthed, acid-blooded xenomorph. You want to make a xenomorph sound? Can you do xenomorph? Excellent, excellent. All right, so we've been talking about a fake company this whole time. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation runs through the Alien franchise, and it is certainly a caricature of a futuristic conglomerate. But what Greg and I will propose today is that it is, in fact, the perfect vehicle to look at how we are living our lives today as workers and laborers in the modern economy.
2:23 Speaker 03 Dun, dun, duh.
2:26 Speaker 01 Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone.
2:28 Speaker 03 And I'm Greg Rosalsky. The movie Alien is set 96 years in a future where a single gargantuan company controls basically everything and employs seemingly everyone.
2:40 Speaker 01 This proves to be bad for workers, because they have no other options, of course, but then even worse for workers when they are forced to onboard their company's newest team member slash profit center, which then, you know, basically eats all of them except for one.
2:56 Speaker 03 It's pretty scary sci-fi stuff, but you know what's scarier, Kenny?
3:01 Speaker 01 What's that, Greg Rosalsky?
3:04 Speaker 03 More and more research suggests our sci-non-fi world has a lot more in common with the labor dynamics of Alien than you might think.
3:13 Speaker 01 It's true. And look, we at Planet Money see economics in everything, but on this one with Alien, we are not alone. Today on the show, you don't need a textbook to learn labor economics. You just need some clips from Alien and one of our leading labor economists to watch them work.
3:40 Speaker 00 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.
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4:53 Speaker 03 OK, so today, we are going to spoil some parts of the 47-year-old movie Alien. If you haven't seen it, come on, people.
5:03 Speaker 01 We will also be spoiling some parts of the brand-new book, The Wage Standard, subtitle "What's Wrong in the Labor Market and How to Fix It?" by economist Aaron Dubey. And if you haven't read that also, come on, what's wrong with you, people?
5:15 Speaker 03 Spoilers all around. So we emailed Aaron to say, you know what? We love your book. But you know what would be cool? If we mostly interviewed about the movie Alien.
5:26 Speaker 01 It's true. And then Aaron wrote back to us and said, basically, heck, yeah.
5:31 Speaker 06 I'm pretty sure I watched Alien for the first time when I was in middle school.
5:36 Speaker 01 That's very young.
5:38 Speaker 06 Yeah, it was very edgy.
5:39 Speaker 01 It's R-rated, Aaron.
5:42 Speaker 03 Aaron is one of the most prominent labor economists working right now. He's at UMass Amherst, and he's probably best known for his research on the minimum wage.
5:51 Speaker 01 Aaron's been contributing to this growing body of work that shows higher minimum wages do not kill jobs the way economists used to think.
6:00 Speaker 03 But you could read all about that in Aaron's book.
6:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
6:03 Speaker 03 Back to Alien.
6:03 Speaker 01 Let's get back to Alien, yes. Do you remember feeling like there were worker rights issues at play?
6:10 Speaker 06 That was like the first thing I thought of. I was like, oh, my gosh. I told my friends. No, I think I was just like, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm watching this.
6:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:19 Speaker 03 If it just so happened that this is why you got into labor economics, that would have been a wonderful answer. But that's OK.
6:26 Speaker 06 You know, we can go with that because who knows?
6:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, who knows? Because there is genuinely a surprising amount of labor economics baked into the very core of this movie.
6:37 Speaker 01 So if you haven't seen it, allow us to briefly explain the setup, the basic setup of the film Alien.
6:47 Speaker 03 20th Century Fox presents.
6:50 Speaker 01 Exterior shot. Spaceship from a company called the Weyland Yutani Corporation.
6:55 Speaker 03 This is a space truck, essentially. It's hauling a bunch of ore from a mining planet back to Earth.
7:00 Speaker 01 But interior shot.
7:03 Speaker 01 Computer screen.
7:04 Speaker 03 The space truck's computer picks up a mysterious signal, then wakes the entire crew from cryosleep.
7:13 Speaker 01 Now, this crew, they're rough, they're tumble, they're blue collar space truckers. They wear tattered clothes and headbands. They work for Weyland Yutani and clearly would rather still be cryosleep.
7:27 Speaker 03 So, yeah, that's the basic setup.
7:30 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, that's right.
7:31 Speaker 01 What about that setup gets your labor economist senses tingling?
7:36 Speaker 06 So, first of all,
7:39 Speaker 06 these are not great jobs.
7:40 Speaker 01 These are tough jobs, yeah.
7:42 Speaker 06 There's some serious negative amenities, as we say.
7:46 Speaker 01 Is that the term?
7:48 Speaker 06 That's the term.
7:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's the term. When you watch Alien with Aaron Dubé, it's like the nerdiest DVD commentary ever. He spots all of these hugely important, real-world ideas from labor economics.
8:01 Speaker 01 And so, we are going to watch Alien with Aaron Dubé and learn about our world from his commentary.
8:08 Speaker 03 So, negative amenities, those are things that make a job less desirable. An emergency room job, it may require overnight shifts. A construction job, it may come with the risk of injury.
8:19 Speaker 01 A space trucker job on a beat-up old mining ship? Uh, yeah. Aaron immediately sees some likely negative amenities here.
8:27 Speaker 06 I know, there's a few, but risk of death is probably like a pretty big one.
8:31 Speaker 01 Yes, I think that's fair to say.
8:33 Speaker 06 Could be fun, though, if life-threatening, but definitely not good.
8:37 Speaker 03 I mean, they have to go into cryogenic sleep for many years. So, you know, they're away from home for a long time.
8:44 Speaker 01 So, negative, away from home for a long time. Positive, get to sleep on the job for a lot of the job. A job with lots of negative amenities is what Aaron calls a bad job. Like, that's a real term. And being a space trucker for the company Weyland Yutani? Bad job, high risk.
9:03 Speaker 06 When you have a job where there's a big risk, you get something that's called compensating differential. Meaning you get paid more because to compensate for the risk. Now, that's if the labor market's working pretty well.
9:16 Speaker 03 Yeah, Aaron has some questions about how well the labor market is functioning in the year 2122.
9:22 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. You don't have to watch for very long to see the problems. Basically, the first scene of the movie Alien is all about work and pay and contracts. And we cue that scene up to watch with Aaron. All right, everyone ready?
9:36 Speaker 06 Yeah.
9:37 Speaker 01 Okay.
9:37 Speaker 06 Sounds good.
9:38 Speaker 01 Here we go.
9:38 Speaker 03 Okay, so in this scene, the crew, they gather around this table. Their captain tells them about this mysterious transmission. And they've been woken up because their company, Weyland Yutani, it needs them to go investigate that transmission.
9:54 Speaker 07 A transmission out here?
9:56 Speaker 06 Yeah.
9:56 Speaker 07 SOS.
9:57 Speaker 06 I don't know.
9:58 Speaker 07 Human?
9:59 Speaker 06 Unknown.
9:59 Speaker 07 I hate to bring this up, but this is a commercial ship, not a rescue ship.
10:04 Speaker 06 Right.
10:04 Speaker 07 It's not my contract to do this kind of duty. Nope. If you want to give me some money, do I have to?
10:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, let me pause there. Not in the contract. What's your reaction to that line?
10:11 Speaker 06 Well, you know, it's not in the contract. So if they are told they have to do something, it's not their contract. They should just quit and get another job.
10:19 Speaker 01 You're being facetious because they're on a spaceship.
10:21 Speaker 06 Oh, no.
10:24 Speaker 06 Why is that gonna work?
10:25 Speaker 01 Yes. Here is a giant clue that the true monster of Alien may be hiding in the labor dynamics, Greg. Yes?
10:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, okay, so our crew, they live on a company ship. They sleep in a company cryosleep chamber. They eat company cornbread, apparently. Functionally, our space truckers live in a company town.
10:47 Speaker 01 Now, what makes Alien a smarter econ movie than it needs to be? Is that it goes further than just saying like, oh, the crew's trapped. Therefore, they must do what their company says. Instead, this scene keeps going. And the crew is like, well, if we do this little side mission, we better get overtime or something.
11:06 Speaker 07 Can I just talk about the bullish?
11:07 Speaker 01 I'm sorry, can I say something?
11:08 Speaker 07 Let's talk about the bullish. There is a clause in the contract.
11:11 Speaker 03 OK, so that person who is, well, actually, there's a clause in the contract. He's an android. He represents the company, Wayland Utani. He's a management shill.
11:20 Speaker 01 Big narc energy.
11:22 Speaker 07 There is a clause in the contract which specifically states any systematized transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin must be investigated. I don't want to hear it. Paco, will you just listen to the man? On penalty of total forfeiture of shares.
11:35 Speaker 06 That sounds bad. You got that?
11:37 Speaker 01 No money, he said.
11:39 Speaker 06 No money.
11:40 Speaker 07 All right, we're going in. Yeah, we're going in.
11:43 Speaker 03 And that shut him up. They're kind of forced into doing this mission because, surprise, the company Wayland Utani has hidden a clause in everyone's contract.
11:53 Speaker 01 So just walk us through what a labor economist thinks watching that scene.
11:57 Speaker 06 Yeah, so if the labor market's really competitive, the ability for companies to write contracts where there's sort of hidden risks, right, like hidden risk, alien calls, you have to go pick up, those would get priced out properly. And so you would get a bonus of some sort or get a higher pay.
12:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:17 Speaker 06 But if the market's not particularly competitive, then that could easily be that there's shrouded, we call it shrouded attributes. People have the unpleasant finding out that actually your contract has things that you didn't fully factor in and you're kind of stuck with it.
12:36 Speaker 01 I mean, they don't know they're about to go be infected by a man-eating superkiller.
12:42 Speaker 06 Uh, yeah, I think the technical term is, uh, you're kind of screwed.
12:50 Speaker 01 Now, I just want to say how wonderful it is that the inciting incident of alien is a shrouded attribute. It's this little clause about a wildly risky job responsibility that Wayland Utani did not need to price into its worker pay because they could just bury it in the contract.
13:10 Speaker 03 And the fact that Wayland Utani could get away with this, that is the second big clue that our poor space truckers, they are not just dealing with a bad Labor market.
13:20 Speaker 01 No, no, no. They're dealing with an infamous economic concept.
13:24 Speaker 03 A concept that could keep some labor economists up at night.
13:28 Speaker 01 A concept that we are actively avoiding saying.
13:32 Speaker 03 Because, yeah, we wanted Aaron to say it.
13:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, he says it well. Would you say that the thing we have not yet said is scarier or less scary than the xenomorph, the alien?
13:41 Speaker 06 You know, in eighth grade, not so much, but today, yeah, you know, like xenomorphs are not great, but monopsony.
13:49 Speaker 03 Ah, monopsony! Oh, monopsony, it's coming to get me!
13:54 Speaker 01 Now-
13:54 Speaker 03 It bursted out of Kenny's chest. Help us!
13:57 Speaker 01 Well, I will say we are bursting with enthusiasm to talk about monopsony, yes? Because Planet Money Stans will know that we love talking monopsony when we can. So, of course, monopoly is where there's one big company selling in a market. Monopsony is when there is one company buying in a market. And, you know, the version we probably hear most often is about one company buying labor, hiring people. So only one company that people can go work for. And it certainly seems as if the corporation Weyland Yutani is operating with the power of a monopsony in the dystopian sci-fi future of Alien.
14:34 Speaker 03 Now, obviously, this is a crazy fantastical world, far off in space with aliens and xenomorphs and whatever. But these sort of all-powerful monopsonies have existed in the real world. Like mining towns that were owned and run by one company. And when there's only one employer, workers are, how did Aaron put it again, kind of screwed.
14:59 Speaker 01 Yes, one company, real bad for workers.
15:02 Speaker 06 Of course, in a company town, or, you know, like, there's gonna be a monopsony power, Weyland Yutani. But this is really a much more endemic feature of the labor market than people have really understood.
15:16 Speaker 01 As in, monopsony power is sneakily hiding all over our current labor market, even when there is more than one company to go work for. And this, this actually is the part that should land. Like the economic version of a surprise alien bursting out of your colleague's chest, Greg. You want to go with that again?
15:34 Speaker 03 Ah, wait, am I the alien or the person?
15:38 Speaker 03 I guess it was both.
15:39 Speaker 01 The monopsony was hiding within us all along. That's the takeaway here. Yes.
15:43 Speaker 03 For decades, economists assumed that labor markets were mostly competitive and that monopsonies, they could be treated like unicorns, you know, only found in rare circumstances. But Aaron and a growing number of economists, they're finding monopsonies, it's more kind of like a regular horse. Monopsony power, it's just like much more pervasive than previously thought.
16:04 Speaker 01 Yes, sure. Pervasive, but the key here is that monopsony power that Aaron and other researchers are finding, it's not obvious, like in old mining towns or future space mining companies. It's kind of with us now sneakily. So Aaron walks us through how to spot what today's monopsony power looks like for us.
16:24 Speaker 06 I think that the key thing is to start with the, like, what is monopsony power? Monopsony power means that workers can't easily switch jobs and employers have some degree of choice of what kind of wages or what kind of working conditions to provide. Now, why do they have this choice? Why don't you have basically, I pay a little bit lower than the market wage. Everyone bolts and is gone to the next best alternative. Why does that not happen?
16:51 Speaker 01 It's not because we're stuck on spaceships. That's not the reason.
16:54 Speaker 06 That's not the reason. That's like the fifth reason. But first, because there may be concentrated markets.
17:01 Speaker 03 Concentrated markets. So maybe we don't yet have one giant Waylon Yutani Corporation running the world, but when you look at specific industries within specific geographies, some of those have been consolidating, offering fewer and fewer employers for people to work for.
17:18 Speaker 01 As industries consolidate, employers tend to be able to reduce pay for workers. And one example Aaron points to in his book, somebody who is working in the skiing industry.
17:29 Speaker 06 Ski industry, you know, like 25 years ago, there was a lot of small, family-owned hills. But over the last 25, 30 years, it's become very consolidated.
17:40 Speaker 03 Interesting.
17:41 Speaker 06 Like, for example, in Vermont, you could maybe go to the next one over. And hey, that's also owned by the same employer. But, you know, that right there is sort of a classic source of monopsony power, that there may be less employers around than you may think for the kinds of work that you're doing.
17:57 Speaker 03 This seems to be true more broadly. Aaron points to one study that found typical American workers only have about three equal-sized employers within driving distance for their particular employment field.
18:09 Speaker 01 But even when you move to big cities where people have way more job options, Aaron's work has found that people simply do not quit a job for better-paying jobs in the way that classic labor market theories would predict.
18:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, maybe they kind of like their commute, or they're like, oh, I love my coworkers. I'll miss them if I leave, or, you know, whatever. And then there's the fact that changing jobs is just a huge pain.
18:33 Speaker 06 What we call in economics, search frictions, that employees actually have difficulty finding out about, applying for, quitting, and taking a new job. These are costly. It's, it can be slow, it can be exhausting, and it can take a lot of effort, especially when you already have another job.
18:54 Speaker 01 And it's not just that changing jobs is annoying, which it is. Aaron says companies intentionally also make it harder for workers to jump ship and change jobs.
19:05 Speaker 06 I talk about this monopsony by artifice. Here's an example, non-compete agreements. So a third or more of American workers end up signing these.
19:13 Speaker 01 A third?
19:15 Speaker 06 Yeah.
19:15 Speaker 01 Wow.
19:16 Speaker 06 And by the way, sometimes it's argued that it's because to protect trade secrets. But then, like, Jimmy John's sandwich chain, summer camp in Massachusetts. The examples go on, but it's basically a way to reduce competition for workers.
19:31 Speaker 01 What you're saying about the ways in which monopsony shows up, like, surely we're not all stuck on a spaceship with a single employer controlling our entire life. And what your research has shown is like, aren't we, though, in just littler ways?
19:46 Speaker 06 That's right. So jobs are sticky. Quitting is harder and as a result, our working conditions and job quality are only partially determined by a well-functioning market force. So yes, there's aspects of exactly what doesn't work in a very dramatic way in Alien does afflict us in smaller but important ways. And the good news is we have ways of fixing or improving those more so than in the movie perhaps.
20:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, Aaron says in the real world, we have ways to push back against monopsony power. Things like minimum wage laws, antitrust enforcement, and labor unions that fight for worker interests.
20:29 Speaker 01 And this is basically what Aaron's book is about. He says the erosion of those counterforces is a big reason we've seen a stagnation of worker pay and a rise in inequality. That's in the real world, of course, but Aaron says he supposes those things would have helped in the movie Alien, too.
20:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, like, imagine if in the movie, the employees of Weyland-Yutani were like in a really strong labor union or something, like one that we see in a lot of other countries, where they hammer out worker protections for a whole sector of the economy.
21:02 Speaker 06 So if we had, for example, the Sectoral Space Fuckers Association.
21:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, the SSTAA. Yep, the SSTAA.
21:12 Speaker 06 The SSTAA. And so when they start having these debates about what they should do, there's a big volume of SSTAA, you know, contract that lays out our collective bargaining. And in fact, if they found out something they didn't really like, they would say, you know what? Let me call, let me talk to my shop steward.
21:31 Speaker 01 That scene would probably play out a little different, wouldn't it?
21:33 Speaker 06 It would sort of be a really boring scene. And then they would say, okay, fine, we're not going to do it. And then they're just going to go back to Earth. The end.
21:40 Speaker 01 I don't know that that would be a boring scene, Greg.
21:42 Speaker 03 It sounds riveting to me, honestly.
21:44 Speaker 01 Agree. And so Planet Money is proud to present the world premiere of Alien 1979, The Labor Economist's Cut.
21:54 Speaker 03 And we hear from someone with firsthand knowledge of what it takes to make an actual Alien movie, and how to nail the perfect balance of labor economics and killer aliens.
22:05 Speaker 01 All of that after the break.
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23:18 Speaker 01 The labor economist Aaron Dubé's cut of Alien 1979, it starts the same way.
23:25 Speaker 03 Spaceship.
23:26 Speaker 01 Computer.
23:27 Speaker 03 Space truckers, wake up.
23:29 Speaker 07 Hey.
23:31 Speaker 07 You're dead.
23:32 Speaker 03 But we asked Aaron Dubé to tweak the labor conditions for a better worker outcome in Alien.
23:37 Speaker 01 Aaron imagined instead a future where the space truckers were part of some sectoral bargaining agreement, where there was a strong union. And here, he thinks, is how the opening of Alien would have played out instead.
23:53 Speaker 07 Some of you may have figured out we're not home yet.
23:57 Speaker 07 Intercepted a transmission of unknown origin. A transmission? Out here? Yeah. You got us up to check it out. This is a commercial ship, not a rescue ship. Right. And it's not my contract to do this kind of duty. Sorry, can I say something? There is a clause in the contract which specifically states any system
24:13 Speaker 03 ...transmission indicating a possible intelligent origin. No, no, hold on. I think somebody's trying to say something in the back.
24:21 Speaker 06 Yeah, remember our grievance procedure? So I'm gonna file that. And while it's being investigated, we actually can't go. That's part of the rule. So, the end.
24:32 Speaker 01 Back to the cryosleep.
24:35 Speaker 06 Back to cryosleep we go. It's a YouTube short.
24:39 Speaker 01 Okay, okay. Yes, ultimately, you cannot have Alien without all these labor dynamics. The negative amenities, shrouded attributes, the monopsany. And I would contend that all of that rich texture is what makes this movie special and a huge part of what makes Alien more than just another good horror movie.
24:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, there are now a bunch of Alien movies, and the best of those, they strike this delicate balance of space terror and smart economic themes. And we were unbelievably excited to get to talk to someone who has actually had to walk that econ horror tightrope.
25:16 Speaker 01 I'm gonna put you on the spot a little bit. Do you remember, off the top of your head, the first words that are spoken in your film Alien Romulus?
25:26 Speaker 07 First word spoken? What is, uh, let me remember.
25:31 Speaker 03 This is Feday Alvarez. He co-wrote and directed the newest film in the Alien franchise.
25:37 Speaker 01 I can give you the answer if you want it.
25:40 Speaker 07 Attention all workers.
25:42 Speaker 01 Attention all workers.
25:43 Speaker 07 Attention all workers. Attention all workers. Day shift starting in T minus 15 minutes.
25:50 Speaker 01 We at Planet Money, we bring our economics lens to everything. But surely, we are not hallucinating that you also have chosen to put labor dynamics, to some degree, front and center here, yes?
26:01 Speaker 07 Well, I think all the, when you're gonna make an Alien movie, the first thing you do is trying to study what make the best durations of this franchise. And I think, and if you look at the first one, you look at giving a second one and the third one, they're always talking about that. I mean, in a way, the, how powerless the individual can be, you know, in front of the machine.
26:23 Speaker 03 Big deal for us. Fede Alvarez, he's a very accomplished horror thriller director. He made his first films in Uruguay. He co-wrote and directed a huge hit in the United States called Don't Breathe. He also directed a reboot of The Evil Dead, which was freaking awesome and supposedly set a record for gallons of fake blood used in a movie.
26:45 Speaker 01 Indeed. Reigns fake blood, lots of fake blood. And Greg and I, big Fede Alvarez fans, and clearly Fede knows that great Alien movies need smart ideas about labor and work. He's not a labor economist, though, so we wanted to talk to Fede about how he went about finding and building those smart ideas into his movie.
27:05 Speaker 03 And Fede told us he admittedly did not notice the econ in Alien at first, but later, when he was around age 20, he started to understand that this movie, it's saying something much bigger.
27:17 Speaker 07 You know, the movie stars, and as soon as they're at the table, they talk about the bonus situation and uh...
27:23 Speaker 01 It's like right away. It's like first thing, we're in a contract. It's wild.
27:28 Speaker 07 It's the first thing they do and talk about the rights as workers. And um, but also they're not just talking about that. They talk about inequality as well. They're talking about why am I getting, you know, less money than you guys? And you know, and the captain goes like, you know, you're gonna get what you deserve. And obviously he's talking about when the monster comes, we're all gonna be the same. We're all gonna be equal. Actually, the captain stopped, I mean, he's one of the first ones to die. And that shows how death is that big an equalizer.
27:55 Speaker 01 So I'm curious, we're gonna get a little economics here with your permission, yes?
28:00 Speaker 07 Yeah, of course.
28:01 Speaker 01 Okay, great. Have you ever heard the term monopsany? Does this come across your radar?
28:06 Speaker 07 Oh, no.
28:06 Speaker 01 Okay, because you 1,000% nail this perfectly in your movie.
28:20 Speaker 03 Okay, let us set this up for you if you haven't seen Fede's movie Alien Romulus. In his Alien, we actually start on a mining and farming planet, a colony entirely controlled by the corporation Wayland Utani.
28:35 Speaker 01 And it is, you know, bad. Workers are living some version of indentured servitude in a company town. And just like in the original Alien, one of Fede's first scenes is simple, yet stuffed with all kinds of huge labor economics.
28:52 Speaker 03 Right, our protagonist, a young woman named Rain, she goes into Wayland Utani's office of colony affairs, and she tries to submit some paperwork to get off this planet. You know, basically, she's trying to quit her job.
29:04 Speaker 06 Full name and occupation, please.
29:06 Speaker 00 Maria Rain's Caredy, ma'am. I met my quota and I should be free to go now.
29:11 Speaker 06 I'm sorry, but you're not eligible for contract release yet.
29:14 Speaker 00 Wait, what? No, no, I reached the required hours.
29:18 Speaker 06 Unfortunately, quotas have been raised to 24,000 hours, so you'll be released from contract in another five to six years. Thank you, and remember, the company is really grateful for your ongoing service.
29:28 Speaker 03 This is a depiction of monopsony that could be taught in economics classes. The way that remote towns historically created this kind of trapped labor force, the way company towns infamously had so much control that workers had to use fake company money to buy things from their company stores, using company script.
29:48 Speaker 01 We asked Fede if he and his co-writer, Rodo Sayagés, had researched, like, case studies to get this right. And he was like, "Yeah, but also, it's a bit more intuitive than that." And it's also about, early on in the movie, setting up what he thinks is the ultimate theme of a good Alien movie: general powerlessness.
30:09 Speaker 07 And in the case of Alien, it's always the Wayland Utani, who represents the government. It's, uh, can be literally that in the stories, but it's also, you know, how you feel powerless versus something that cannot be destroyed, that seems to you cannot negotiate with, that seems that it's relentless. So... I think that's why I think the best ones, they always start there. They get the audience, they draw them in from a perspective of, you know, everybody knows how it feels to be in that place and be, feel powerless.
30:40 Speaker 01 I've read a few quotes from you about this as an Uruguayan.
30:43 Speaker 07 Exactly, yeah.
30:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, you said things like, growing up under a dictatorship in a developing country, that there is a feeling that may seem specific, but is universal, about sort of a lack of options for you as a young person.
30:57 Speaker 07 Yeah, I mean ironically, at the same time, yes, Uruguay, by being born in a dictatorship, like my parents had a sort of mentality and a way of survival instinct that came from being born in that environment where you didn't have a lot of choices. And if you grew a beard, you will get arrested. But at the same time, that being said, there's also the other side of it is when I moved to the United States, when I make people dead in my first film and I move here, I was like, wait a second, you guys don't have like vacation salary, like you don't have like guarantee 30 days of vacation every year? And people were like, what are you talking about?
31:34 Speaker 01 You have to work.
31:35 Speaker 07 And I was like, what, what is this dystopian society? So, you know, Uruguay, we have healthcare, it's free healthcare. And, you know, particularly on the employer dynamics, if you get hired by a company and they want to fire you, it's okay, they can fire you, but they will have to pay you. There's all this severance thing, they have to pay you at least a month of salary for each year that you work at the company. So the more you work, the harder it is to fire. And I took for granted all my life living there. And then when I came here, and every people laughing at all this nonsense.
32:06 Speaker 07 So for me, that also made me understand why in Alien, it was important if I was going to make one, to really bring some of the subjects, you know, to forefront.
32:16 Speaker 01 A rumor on the street is that you and Roto have already written the sequel to Alien Romulus. Is that correct?
32:22 Speaker 07 We did, we did. I didn't want to direct another one.
32:25 Speaker 01 No, no, no questions about whether you're going to direct. I don't need spoilers, you don't need to spoil any plot. But can you exclusively for our Planet Money audience, tell us, will we get more labor economics?
32:37 Speaker 07 Definitely.
32:38 Speaker 01 Yes.
32:39 Speaker 07 That's what they're all about. Yeah, that's what they're all about. It's not a good alien movie if it doesn't, you know, deal with that.
32:44 Speaker 01 That's true. Can we expect, now that I've taught you the term monopsany, is it too late to change your next script and throw a little, sprinkle a little monopsany?
32:53 Speaker 07 Don't you see it, guys? This is a monopsany. The whole theater's going, is it what?
32:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's right. They're gonna know. They'll know. They'll know.
33:02 Speaker 01 Fetty, thank you so much. This was awesome. I hope you enjoyed talking some of this.
33:05 Speaker 07 No, my pleasure. Your my pleasure.
33:09 Speaker 01 Don't fast forward. We've got a special event to tell you about that is just gonna be for our NPR Plus supporters. If you couldn't make one of our book tour events back in April, we've got great news for you. We're doing one more, one more book tour event. This time, it's a live virtual event. It's on Thursday, June 25th at 3:00 PM Eastern. My colleague Jeff Guo will be there. The main author of our book, Alex Mayassi, he will be there. We'll also have some special guests, TBD. If you've already joined NPR Plus, thank you. And listen to our most recent bonus episode to find out how to register for the event. And if you have not joined NPR Plus yet, well, make sure you're signed up by June 24th to get our invite. Just go to plus.npr.org. Again, that is plus.npr.org.
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34:00 Speaker 03 Today's episode of Planet Money was produced by the wonderful, the incomparable James Sneed. Go Knicks! It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juárez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.
34:16 Speaker 01 Special thanks this week to Taylor Haber and to you, Greg Rosalsky, you little Cenomorph you. Greg, if you are not familiar, is our newsletter writer and wrote two excellent newsletters about monopsany, about the movie Alien, about Aaron Dubé. And those inspired this show, so you can find those. We're gonna link to them in our show notes.
34:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, thanks, Kenny. Really appreciate that.
34:40 Speaker 01 Yeah. I'm Kenny Malone.
34:41 Speaker 03 And I'm Greg Rosalsky. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
34:46 Speaker 03 The key is to get a little bit of like the like kind of wet sound. Like that's what I noticed.
34:52 Speaker 01 What would the subtitle of your xenomorph sound say? Like the descriptive audio?
34:57 Speaker 01 I was gonna say, I was gonna say gurgles. Gurgles monotonistically. That's what I'm going with.
35:02 Speaker 03 Yeah, scary gurgling.
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