I think watching this vindicated my quasi socialist convictions that the marketplace does not solve everything and usually causes much more harm than good. Hayek and Friedman's ideas are so long term truths and should be debunked.
shareThis is garbage there are many good arguments one could make against the idea of free market capitalism however none are made here in the film. The director is naive at best or purposely dishonest at worst. He makes bizarre assumptions and logical leaps. Much of his argument is built on the idea that game theory underlies most of the philosophy of western society however he states this as a matter of fact, without giving any evidence to demonstrate this to be true.
shareHave you ever studied economics? I am sure if you did that you would know that Game Theory is greatly integral to a lot of predictions and mathematical models that economists use.
Where are the logical leaps? Where are the bizarre assumptions? Curtis is an ex-Oxford Professor in Politics and holds a degree in Human Science. I think to dismiss his work as garbage shows a very skewed worldview. Curtis links how an idea manifests itself from the Professor's lecture room to the Company Boardroom to every house and kitchentable in the Western World.
Just because your poltical beliefs are probably otherwise do not just simply dismiss a rational, reasonable critique of the Western World. I would not say his films are sensationalist at all.
"Much of his argument is built on the idea that game theory underlies most of the philosophy of western society however he states this as a matter of fact, without giving any evidence to demonstrate this to be true."
Please explain the above statement because from here, it's irrelevant.
When you put together that game theory and the advancement in computer software went hand in hand, the pattern is painfully obvious. The only point of contention is the unholy marriage of Game Theory and Hayek's bleak view of what people are, self serving, rational machines and that altruism has no part to play in society. This FACT is not in question, there is evidence of Hayek's views in the film.
If you knew anything about Commerce in a western "Market Democracy" you may see the truth in what Curtis has to say. Without this, you are just cheering for your team and using blanket meaningless terms like "liberal".
Try me on economics. You want evidence? I could give you an oral history about how the system works based on 15 years of experience in Sales and Marketing (ironically, the role that the system rewards the most). I even recall the cross-over from the "job and finish" mentality to the stat based Systems Analysis run solely for profit.
It's all about measuring things that are impossible to measure and consolidating them into a figure on a spreadsheet. Since it couldn't be measured in the first place, the number is fiction, but it is still recorded and factored into what are called K.P.I's (key preformance indicators) which are a method of monitoring and forecasting productivity based on very narrow "measureable" indicators.
It's a deeply flawed system made to achieve one thing. It's to distill every human endeavour into numbers and then distill these numbers into the bottom line ie profit.
All of life on earth is distilled into Dollars, Cents and Pounds, shillings and pence.
"There must be some way outta here" said the Joker to the Thief.
Its a system like all those before it - constantly evolving and changing and the commercialism that he have since the 1980s just isnt sustainable and that its flaws could have avoided and adjusted earlier within the borders of a social democracy.
shareHayek didn't believe in rational human beings.
I could write more, but this is enough -- your post is utter fail.