Macro Economics Submitted By: Amit Sonkawade (MBA19009)

Assignment-1
Commanding Heights- The Battle of Ideas
Introduction:
Commanding Heights- The Battle of Ideas is a documentary film based on the book
The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy written by Daniel Yergin and
Joseph Stainslaw. The documentary is narrated by David Ogden Stiers. The documentary is a
six-hour documentary which also includes the discussion of events including collapse of
Asian economies, the anti- globalization movement and the September 11 attacks which were
not addressed in the book by Yergin and Stainslaw.
The book and documentary both address and examine briefly many different nations
and regions and their economic development since World War II except some events before
World War II.
Problems:
Problems addressed in the documentary are as follows:
United States: United Stated faced the problem of unemployment which was
caused by the Great Depression.
Soviet Union and Russia: The problem faced by Soviet Union and Russia were
that their economy was in crises.
Germany: The hyperinflation caused by the Treaty of Versailles caused a
major crisis for the German economy and created political instability.
Solutions:
United States:
A New Deal was signed by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The New
Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms and regulations. The
New Deal included federal programs like Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), The Civil
Works Administration (CWA), The Farm Security Administration (FSA), The National
Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) and The Social Security Administration (SSA) which helped
to solve the problem of unemployment caused by the Great depression. They were in favour
of Keynesianism which helped the American economy boom for about 30 years after World
War II. Eventually many of the statutes and organizations created by the New Deal were
dismantled.
Soviet Union and Russia:
As the Soviet economy went into major crisis, Lenin responded with the New
Economic Policy a program which allowed limited capitalistic activity which resulted in
improvement of the economy. But after some time, due to limited capitalism people revolted
against it and under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Agriculture and heavy
manufacturing were largely centralized which again resulted in Soviet economy growing at a
rate which outpaced that of Western European Nations.
Macro Economics Submitted By: Amit Sonkawade (MBA19009)

With the fall of Soviet Union and under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin, who
was free market minded but former Communist Party of the Soviet Union maintained more
power which resulted in blocked free market movement.
Germany:
Hyperinflation effectively wiped out the country’s middle class and that
environment made it easy for the Nazi Party to gain power. Nazi’s solved the problem of
hyperinflation by complete capitalism. After the war and division of Germany into West
Germany and East Germany. East Germany came under the rule of Soviet Union and West
Germany came under the rule of Western countries. West Germany’s economic conditions
failed to improve that’s when Ludwig Erhard completely destroyed price controls in 1948.
After this West Germany underwent a fast-massive economic recovery. While German
reunification, West Germany was an economic power & East Germany faced many problems
because of the collapse of the central planning authority.