Advertisement

Commanding Heights

Episode One: The Battle of Ideas

A global economy, energized by technological change and unprecedented
flows of people and money, collapses in the wake of a terrorist attack
…. The year is 1914.

Worldwide war results, exhausting the resources of the great powers
and convincing many that the economic system itself is to blame. From
the ashes of the catastrophe, an intellectual and political struggle
ignites between the powers of government and the forces of the
marketplace, each determined to reinvent the world’s economic order.

Two individuals emerge whose ideas, shaped by very different
experiences, will inform this debate and carry it forward. One is a
brilliant, unconventional Englishman named John Maynard Keynes. The
other is an outspoken émigré from ravaged Austria, Friedrich von
Hayek.

But a worldwide depression holds the capitalist nations in its grip.
In opposition to both Keynes and Hayek stand not only Hitler’s Third
Reich but Stalin’s Soviet Union, schooled in the communist ideologies
of Marx and Lenin and bent on obliterating the capitalist system
altogether.

For more than half a century the battle of ideas will rage. From the
totalitarian socialist systems to the fascist states, from the
independent nations of the developing world to the mixed economies of
Europe, and the regulated capitalism of the United States, government
planning will gradually take over the commanding heights.

But in the 1970s, with Keynesian theory at its height and communism
fully entrenched, economic stagnation sets in on all sides. When a
British grocer’s daughter and a former Hollywood actor become heads of
state, they join forces around the ideas of Hayek, and new political
and economic policies begin to transform the world.

Episode Two: The Agony of Reform

As the 1980s begin and the Cold War grinds on, the existing world
order appears firmly in place. Yet beneath the surface powerful
currents are carving away at the economic foundations.

Western democracies still struggle with deficits and inflation, while
communism hides the failure of its command economy behind a facade of
military might. In Latin America populist dictators strive to thwart
foreign economic exploitation, piling up debt and igniting
hyperinflation in the process. In India and Africa bureaucracies
established to end poverty through scientific planning spawn black
markets and corruption and stifle enterprise.

Worldwide, the strategies of government planning are failing to
produce their intended results. From Bolivia and Peru to Poland and
Russia, the free-market policies of Thatcher and Reagan are looked to
as a possible blueprint for escape. One by one, economies in crisis
adopt “shock therapy” — a rapid conversion to free-market
capitalism.

As the command economies totter and collapse, privatization transfers
economic power back into entrepreneurial hands, and whole societies go
through wrenching change. For some the demands and opportunities of
the market provide a longed for liberation. Others, lacking the means
to adapt, see their security and livelihood swept away. In this new
capitalist revolution enlightened enterprise and cynical exploitation
thrive alike. The sum total of global wealth expands, but its unequal
distribution increases, too, and economic regeneration exacts a high
human price.

Episode Three: The New Rules of the Game

With communism discredited, more and more nations harness their
fortunes to the global free-market. China, Southeast Asia, India,
Eastern Europe and Latin America all compete to attract the developed
world’s investment capital, and tariff barriers fall. In the United
States Republican and Democratic administrations both embrace
unfettered globalization over the objections of organized labor.

But as new technology and ideas drive profound economic change,
unforeseen events unfold. A Mexican economic meltdown sends the
Clinton administration scrambling. Internet-linked financial markets,
unrestricted capital flows, and floating currencies drive levels of
speculative investment that dwarf trade in actual goods and services.
Fueled by electronic capital and a global workforce ready to adapt,
entrepreneurs create multinational corporations with valuations
greater than entire national economies.

When huge pension funds go hunting higher returns in emerging markets,
enterprise flourishes where poverty once ruled, but risk grows, too.
In Thailand the huge reservoir of available capital proves first a
blessing, then a curse. Soon all Asia is engulfed in an economic
crisis, and financial contagion spreads throughout the world, until
Wall Street itself is threatened. A single global market is now the
central economic reality. As the force of its effects is felt, popular
unease grows. Is the system just too complex to be controlled, or is
it an insiders’ game played at outsiders’ expense? New centers of
opposition to globalization form and the debate turns violent over who
will rewrite the rules.

Yet prosperity continues to spread with the expansion of trade, even
as the gulf widens further between rich and poor. Imbalances too
dangerous for the system to ignore now drive its stakeholders to
devise new means to include the dispossessed lest, once again,
terrorism and war destroy the stability of a deeply interconnected
world.

Join The Conversation

7 Comments / User Reviews

Leave Your Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  1. This series is great. While 2 hours long each, they are still highly sumarised. I’ve really enjoyed this, thanks for making this available.

  2. With our current economic problems, I have been reading and watching a lot of information about the economy.  Many times I have come across economists talking about the Austrian school of economics, which I was pleased to see addressed via Hayek in this film.  Many Austrian economists predicted the housing market crisis before it occurred and are now predicting the collapse of the U.S. dollar.  This film helped me to understand why the government is intervening in our economy so much via QE1/2 and leading us towards serious inflation.

    Despite the corporate sponsorship, this film gave an excellent overview of the history of modern economic thought and why our economy is run the way it is today.  Although I haven’t watch the second two parts of the film, I found the information well presented and am looking forward to watching the last two parts. 

  3. With our current economic problems, I have been reading and watching a lot of information about the economy.  Many times I have come across economists talking about the Austrian school of economics, which I was pleased to see addressed via Hayek in this film.  Many Austrian economists predicted the housing market crisis before it occurred and are now predicting the collapse of the U.S. dollar.  This film helped me to understand why the government is intervening in our economy so much via QE1/2 and leading us towards serious inflation.

    Despite the corporate sponsorship, this film gave an excellent overview of the history of modern economic thought and why our economy is run the way it is today.  Although I haven’t watch the second two parts of the film, I found the information well presented and am looking forward to watching the last two parts. 

  4. It’s a testament to the devilishness of dichotic thinking that no one questions whether both keynesian economics and capitalist economics are wrong. In fact, axiomatically, they must both be wrong. Best not to try and control a natural phenomenon like society. The human toll tends to be too dear.

  5. Wow, now this is corporate propaganda at it’s purest. I will have to watch this later on but I’m scared to do so since just reading the description brought about bouts of nausea and temporary psychosis caused by my brain being completely stupefied by the dogmatic bullshit that doesn’t even attempt to be objective.

    But in order for me to be objective I need to review all POV’s, even if they are skillfully crafted manipulations designed for public relations(propaganda) operations that serve no factual purpose except to provide me a better understanding of those who create such claptrap.

    Well I’ll try to survive viewing this film later, for now I’m going to do some digging on those sponsors.

  6. This seems to be an indictment of mixed economies and a lionization of The Chicago School economic model of so-called free markets. The corporate sponsors listed at the beginning should be huge red flag.

  7. just started watching but not sure i want to watch any further considering the corperations that are sponsering this doc.