Videos

Commanding Heights

Three programs, two hours each, that tell the behind-the-scenes story of our new world economy - the struggle between governments and markets - and the battle over globalization.

COMMANDING HEIGHTS, based on the book by Daniel Yergen, is an in-depth documentary that was filmed over two years on five continents. The series is built around dramatic stories and interviews with world leaders and thinkers from twenty different countries - including former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Dick Cheney, Milton Friedman, former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, Mexican President Vicente Fox, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, former Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, British Chancellor Gordon Brown, former Speaker Newt Gingrich... and many more.

The PBS television series has a comprehensive web site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/index.html. Under the section entitled "Educators' Guide" is a list of themes covered in this excellent series. Here are but a few of them:

1. The current global economy is the outgrowth of a century of trial-and-error experimentation with different political and economic ideologies.
2. The core battle of ideas is an argument about the best way to promote the economic welfare of society as a whole.
3. For most of the last century the argument has centered on the role that central governments should or should not play in economic activity.
4. For much of the last century the argument appeared to swing in favor of central planning and government control.
5. More recently, the pendulum has swung the other way, toward greater reliance on market forces to determine the allocation of resources.
6. The transition away from central control has increased productivity and expanded wealth, but has also been socially wrenching for the peoples of many nations.