Commanding Heights Essay 1- “The Battle of Ideas”
The social and economic catastrophe was one of the worst problems after World War I and lasted through the 20th century. The Battle of Ideas, was a battle between the power of government and the forces of the marketplace. For over half of a century, the world was moving toward a government control -- from a communist world to a mixed economy. In the 1980s the old policies of these economies began to fail dramatically, and two economist were battling the ideas of what they thought will work better for our geopolitical landscape. John Maynard Keynes was from Britain and believed his revolutionary theories on unemployment and recession was going to help government take a lot more control over their economy. Friedrich von Hayek was an Australian and advocated for a free-market capitalism. Ludwig von Mises was an economist that predicted that new Soviet socialist economy would never work, because the government controlled wages and prices. These prices are the very heart or centerpiece in which is what makes the economy work, without these set standards our economy would be in chaos. This is one of the effect that has been on our geopolitical landscape. Like suggested in the video “with our traffic signals the street will be in chaos.” That is the same with our economy if we do not have a centerpiece, guidelines or standards this can cause a chain reaction not just in one economy but all over the world. There is a lot of connection to Globalization in these videos. The world was moving from a communist economy to a mixed economy. In the videos it talks about The World Bank Group and The International Monetary Fund, both of these play a huge role in Globalization and are global institutions. Some of the supporting factors of Globalization in the video were as follows, technologies changed played a big part in the changing economy. Better telecommunication factors helped people