Commanding Heights Essay Example for Free

Commanding Heights Essay Episode 1 The Battle of Ideas begs a comparison between socialist economy and capitalism. It traces the worlds economic history from the early 1900s to the events following 9/11. Asks the question which is a better and more foolproof economic governing body government control or free markets? It delves into how the First World War impacted two brilliant economists, Keynes and Hayek. And then follows both Keynes and Hayek through their respective career paths (Keynes role as an advisor to the British Government on wartime economy and Hayek as an Austrian soldier). Keynes predicted that the result of the treaty of Versailles and demanding reparations from an already bankrupt Germany and Austria would cause some other war, The Second World War. slowdown Hayek and his disciple Zlabinger fought against hyper inflation and encouraged free markets. Simultaneously the American Economy was booming, till October 24th, 1930 when the great depression hit and une mployment soared and persistence stopped and half of the US banks were closed down. During this time Keyness theory of government intervention helped lead the way out of the problem (Keynes wrote about Macroeconomics). Meanwhile Lenin had introduced the New Economic Policy which consisted of grass root level capitalism but the commanding heights would unsounded be under the government. The reform was met with testing from the left, soon after Stalin took power and employed centralised planning of every economic aspect. Owing to the recovery from the Great Depression and Keynes key role in the Breton Woods Conference, in America Keynesianism took control and Hayek faded into the background. In Britain a welfare state and socialism built the country back from the bottom up. new independent countries like India also employed Keynesian methods, allowing for State led industry. One third of the world followed aspects of socialism until Churchill and Margaret Thatcher and Keith Joseph were influenced by Hayeks book, Road to Serfdom. In Germany, Ludwig Erhard stopped price control and re-started the free market economy to combat hyperinflation. The success of his risky decision led to the German Economic Miracle. While Keynes still had a strong hold over Washington, a Chicago School of Economics was created and it emphasised Hayeks theory as a measure to struggle stagflation. Finally Thatchers election and confidence in Hayeks theory allowed for free markets to be established again. Thus, after a period of a ascorbic acid came back to where it was at the beginning of the century, back to free markets.