Hayek

Re-watch it.

Curtis doesn't tie Hayek's work to the RAND corporation. It just skates over his ideas for a Capitalist model based on self interest. All that was stated was that his ideas when juxtaposed with the simplistic model of a human being, provided by game theory, appear to give a model of a stable free market. Game theory assumes self interest, it makes the model work.

After all Hayek was an aristocrat working in his own self interest (as he suggests everyone should). He's from money and understands that free markets help the rich become richer. I quote your post "that by pursuing their (by which it is meant not just the self but family and friends as well) own interests people promote the interests of everyone". Yes, family and friends as well, wealthy, powerful friends. I think you are splitting hairs here.

Also, Hayek seeing Nazi Germany as a "threat" is a given because they where committed to monetary reform and where against the Central Banking system. They blamed financial institutions for their defeat in WWI, something that Hitler seethed about. This led in part to the "final solution". Hitler saw the banks as part of the "International Jewish Conspiracy" and, yes he was certainly dangerous to the wealthy people of the world.

As far as the Soviet Union being a threat to Free Markets, that is a 100% certainty. Communists are at the extreme end of the political spectrum from Capitalist. How could a Capitalist NOT point to the Communists as a threat? The Communist will seize the means of production and give it to the workers.

You may know a lot about Hayek, but you don't appear to know much about Political movements such as Marxism or National Socialism.

"Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day"

I think this is unfair to the movie in a few ways. First, I don't think the film ties Hayek to people at RAND and their game-theoretic Cold War strategizing. It claims no direct connection between Hayek and the thinking coming out of RAND. It doesn't claim that his thinking influenced the work going on at RAND, or vice versa. Rather, Curtis claims that someone might think the theorizing coming out of RAND supported Hayek's views about spontaneous order arising form the self-interested actions of individuals. Importantly, though, the film does not claim that Hayek himself thought this was the case; indeed, the film says nothing about what, if anything, he thought about the work coming out of RAND at that time.

Second, Curtis does seem to claim that Hayek thought the West was inevitably heading towards totalitarianism. But, in context, it seems clear he's claiming that Hayek thought this would happen IF Western countries continued to rely on governmental control of their economies. I mean, right after Curtis claims Hayek thought this was inevitable, he turns around and says that there's a way out if we give up on central planning of our economies and let individuals freely pursue their own self-interested ends. So the way Curtis phrases these points could've been clearer, but I don't think he's attributing to Hayek the view that Western nations were bound to become totalitarian.

Third, the film does acknowledge that Hayek thought all would be better off if each individual were allowed to pursue his or her own self-interest. About six minutes in, there's a short video clip of Hayek from an interview, and his very first sentence is "We will benefit our fellow men most if we are guided solely by the striving for gain." You might think this point should've received more emphasis, and you may well be right. But it's in there.