Based on the book by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw.

a haiku. (not really)
by garth mortensen.
mises, friedman, thatcher, sachs, yawn.
socialism, capitalism, communism, reagonomicsism, yawn.
bank runs, regressions, depressions, injections, yawn.
inflation, stagflation, hyperinflation, cold turkey, yawn.
global, poli, ECON, 101, yawn.

i tried to employ a cheap tactic i have heard in rap, where you trick people into thinking that youre rhyming when actually your just repeating the same word. i think rappers can do it because they do it only twice, and very quickly, and nobody really cares what they write anyways.

im sorry, but it is very hard to stay focused on this regurgitated commanding heights subject. ( )

Resource Allocation and the Battle of Economic Ideals
In Carl Sagan's "Contact," the unknown entity encountered by Arroway after her journey into the wormhole delivers a scathing critique of the human condition, and goes on to express his concern about Earth's "astonishingly backward economic systems." "Commanding Heights" is a comprehensive account of those "backward" economic systems and chronicles the seemingly amaranthine battle between governments and the marketplace for control of the most important elements of the global economy. The discussion centers on the economic events of the second half of the twentieth century, sandwiched between the establishment of the British welfare state at the conclusion of the Second World War and the Asian financial contagion unfolding at the time of the book's publication.

The theme of "Commanding Heights" is the superiority of resource allocation via free markets vis--vis resource allocation by means of government control of strategic business undertakings. Along this free market-government control continuum, there are three fundamental, ideological positions concerning the workings of an economy: economic totalitarianism, strategic intervention, and non-interventionism. Given this backdrop, the second half of the twentieth century is depicted as a colossal experiment in wealth creation and redistribution. Advocates of neoclassical economics such as Friedrich von Hayek pitted their ideas against Keynesians and supporters of the command-and-control system.

World War II and its concomitant cost in human lives and shattered economic potential served as the catalyst for a remaking of the global economic order. Policymakers and politicians began questioning the effectiveness of a purely laissez-faire market system in mitigating the impact of macroeconomic failures and in addressing the issues of equity, poverty, and unemployment. Keynes provided a blueprint for the emergence of the so-called mixed economy, advocating government intervention through fiscal and monetary measures. Nationalization of strategic industries, central planning, and direct regulation were some of the tools made available to administrators.

By the time of the oil shocks of the 1970s, it became increasingly clear that this system of state control over essential economic activities was ill-equipped to deal with market shocks, and that regulatory capture rendered direct government supervision of natural monopolies and fundamental services ineffective and untenable. At the end of the 1980s, concerns about market failure started to give way to belief in the superiority of the market in allocating resources and ensuring that economic actors adhere to the principles of equity and fair play. Government began to take a back seat from managing the commanding heights of the economy, and privatization, deregulation, and liberalization became the norm.

The authors are unabashedly in favor of laissez-faire economics; this is shown by the recounting of recent economic history as a set of multifarious journeys undertaken by various countries that nearly invariably leads to the adoption of neoclassical economics as the sole logical solution to the ills caused by big government.

Ultimately, whether the experiment with `enlightened' free enterprise and the continuing retreat of government will succeed or not in the long term will depend on a host of factors, such as: (1) is the pursuit of pure profit by erstwhile government-owned entities detrimental to public welfare? (2) will liberalization ensure a fair distribution of wealth? (3) does internationally mobile capital impinge on national sovereignty? (4) is the marketplace inherently superior in price determination, especially in the short term? and (5) will the "balance of confidence" turn out to be in favor of free markets? ( )

Good globalization primer.