The Age of Uncertainty
A history of economic ideas and their consequences.
A 13-part personal view by John Kenneth Galbraith of the rise and crisis of Industrial Society. The ideas of economists and social philosophers shape actions and events even when we are unaware of their sources. They have had a decisive influence on the great rush of change and revolution through which the world has passed in the last two hundred years. Professor Galbraith traces these ideas and their consequences.
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Ep 1The Prophets and Promise of Classical Capitalism
John Kenneth Galbraith tells the story of the men who laid the foundations of economics, including Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. What they made of the world of their time profoundly affects our world.
Ep 2The Manners and Morals of High Capitalism
Professor Galbraith looks at the ideas that sustained the rich in the 19th century and how they still affect our attitudes today. Herbert Spencer justified the moneymaking in straight Darwinian terms as 'survival of the fittest'. Thorstein Veblen thought a parallel with Papuans a more appropriate one.
Ep 3The Dissent of Karl Marx
JK Galbraith investigates the impact of Karl Marx on our economic interpretation of society. The life and work of Marx set the pattern for a socialist future, but the revolution he so much wanted did not materialise in his lifetime.
Ep 4The Colonial Idea
Professor Galbraith traces the colonial adventure, from the Crusades to the present, from the fall of Acre to the fall of Saigon. He looks at the potent myths that sustained colonialism and the real motives behind them.
Ep 5Lenin and the Great Ungluing
JK Galbraith examines WWI as an instrument in changing the old social order, and especially Lenin, who spent most of the war exiled in Switzerland urging soldiers to start a world revolution. A revolution did come, but Lenin nearly missed his chance to be part of it.
Ep 6The Rise and Fall of Money
From the elegant banks of 17th-century Amsterdam to the dark days of the Great Depression, Prof Galbraith traces the history of money - its uses and abuses, the grand successes and the spectacular disasters.
BBC Two
GB
