| The Age of Uncertainty | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Created by | John Kenneth Galbraith |
| Starring | John Kenneth Galbraith |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom, United States, Canada |
| No. of episodes | 15 |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 60 minutes (per episode) |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC, CBS, KCET, OECA |
| Release | January 10 – April 2, 1977 |
The Age of Uncertainty is a 1977 book and television series about economics, co-produced by the BBC, CBC, KCET and OECA, and written and presented by Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
Galbraith fully acknowledged the successes of the market system in economics but associated it with instability, inefficiency and social inequity. He advocated government policies and interventions to remedy these perceived faults. [1] In his book Economics and the Public Purpose (1973) he proposed the extension of the planning system used in the industrial core of the economy to the wider market economy. He argued for a new socialism, with more steeply progressive taxes, public housing, medical care and transportation, public support of the arts and the conversion of some corporations and military contractors into public corporations. [2]
He was the most read social scientist of his era.[ citation needed ] Galbraith's association with the U.S. Democratic Party and his criticism of fellow economists, who promoted individualistic free-market economics that he perceived as a false social reality, occasioned strong responses. [3] He was of the opinion that "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding". [4]
In the midst of the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1973 Galbraith was called by Adrian Malone of the BBC and asked if he would be interested in doing a television series on the history of economic or social ideas. Galbraith had been thinking of retirement but quickly accepted Malone's proposal. At an early point they settled on the title "Age of Uncertainty" to reflect the sharp contrast between the great certainty in 19th century economic thought with the much less assured views in modern times. [5]
As discussions about the series continued a further theme was developed: that what people believe about the workings of markets and their relationships to the state shapes history through the laws that are enacted or discarded. [5] It was therefore decided that the treatment of these themes would loosely fall into two parts, ideas followed by their consequences. [6]
The content of the series was determined by Galbraith with the presentation style directed by his colleagues in the BBC. Galbraith began by writing a series of essays from which the scripts were derived and from these the book emerged which in many places goes beyond the material covered in the relevant television episode. [7] The series was three years in the making.
The leader of the British Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, and Keith Joseph objected to the screening of the series by the BBC as they perceived it too biased for a state-run TV station. Milton Friedman was brought over from Chicago to lecture against Galbraith's economic viewpoints with Nicholas Kaldor opposing him. [8] The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator , publications associated with the Conservative political party, dismissed the series whilst the Financial Times and New York Times viewed it positively. [9] Milton Friedman presented his own response to Galbraith in his series Free to Choose . [3]
Along with his other works Economics and the Public Purse and Money, The Age of Uncertainty reinforced Galbraith's stature as a major American economist who upheld and championed traditional Keynesian economics as opposed to the more free market and liberal economic theories of Milton Friedman. [10]
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement is a 1980 book by economists Milton and Rose D. Friedman, accompanied by a ten-part series broadcast on public television, that advocates free market principles. It was primarily a response to an earlier landmark book and television series The Age of Uncertainty, by the noted economist John Kenneth Galbraith.
Friedrich August von Hayek, often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian-British academic, who contributed to economics, political philosophy, psychology, and intellectual history. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how prices communicate information is widely regarded as an important contribution to economics that led to him receiving the prize.
Milton Friedman was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, when it turned to new classical macroeconomics heavily based on the concept of rational expectations. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, and Robert Lucas Jr.
Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. Along with John Hicks, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972.
John Kenneth Galbraith, also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the 2000s. As an economist, he leaned toward post-Keynesian economics from an institutionalist perspective.
Neoliberalism, also neo-liberalism, is a term used to signify the late-20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is often used pejoratively. In scholarly use, the term is frequently undefined or used to characterize a vast variety of phenomena, but is primarily used to describe the transformation of society due to market-based reforms.
Frank Hyneman Knight was an American economist who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the founders of the Chicago School.
James Kenneth Galbraith is an American economist. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and part of the executive committee of the World Economics Association, created in 2011.
The Chicago school of economics is a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles. Milton Friedman, and George Stigler are considered the leading scholars of the Chicago school.
Anna Jacobson Schwartz was an American economist who worked at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York City and a writer for The New York Times. Paul Krugman has said that Schwartz is "one of the world's greatest monetary scholars."
Economic methodology is the study of methods, especially the scientific method, in relation to economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning. In contemporary English, 'methodology' may reference theoretical or systematic aspects of a method. Philosophy and economics also takes up methodology at the intersection of the two subjects.
The history of economic thought is the study of the philosophies of the different thinkers and theories in the subjects that later became political economy and economics, from the ancient world to the present day.
Free to Choose Network, sometimes referred to as Free to Choose Media, is a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation headquartered in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Steven Pressman is an American economist. He is a former Professor of Economics and Finance at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. He has taught at the University of New Hampshire and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
The Keynesian Revolution was a fundamental reworking of economic theory concerning the factors determining employment levels in the overall economy. The revolution was set against the then orthodox economic framework, namely neoclassical economics.
The post-war displacement of Keynesianism was a series of events which from mostly unobserved beginnings in the late 1940s, had by the early 1980s led to the replacement of Keynesian economics as the leading theoretical influence on economic life in the developed world. Similarly, the allied discipline known as development economics was largely displaced as the guiding influence on economic policies adopted by developing nations.
Throughout modern history, a variety of perspectives on capitalism have evolved based on different schools of thought.
William Breit (1933–2011) was an American economist, mystery novelist, and professional comedian. Breit was born in New Orleans. He received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Texas and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 1961. He was an Assistant and associate professor of economics at Louisiana State University (1961–1965) On the recommendation of Milton Friedman he was interviewed and hired at the University of Virginia where he was Associate Professor and Professor of Economics (19651983). He returned to his San Antonio as the E.M. Stevens Distinguished Professor of Economics at Trinity University in 1983 and retired as the Vernon F. Taylor Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 2002. He is considered an expert in the history of economic thought and anti-trust economics. He established the Nobel Laureate Lecture Series at Trinity University and is most notable as a mystery novelist where their murder mysteries are solved by applying basic economic principles.
Bob Chitester was an American Television Executive and Producer, best known for creating the 10-hour, ten-part series starring economist Milton Friedman called Free to Choose.
