The Age of Uncertainty
| The Age of Uncertainty | |
|---|---|
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| 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) |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC, CBS, KCET, OECA |
| Original release | 1977 – 1977 |
The Age of Uncertainty is a 1977 book and television series, 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. 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.
He was the most read social scientist of his era. 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. He was of the opinion that "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding".
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.
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. It was therefore decided that the treatment of these themes would loosely fall into two parts, ideas followed by their consequences.
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. The series was three years in the making.
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