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All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (TV series)

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BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis

(in three parts)"},"company":{"wt":"[[BBC]]"},"network":{"wt":"[[BBC Two]]"},"first_aired":{"wt":"{{Start date|2011|05|23|df=yes}}"},"last_aired":{"wt":"{{End date|2011|06|06|df=yes}}"}},"i":0}}]}'>All Watched Over by Machines of Loving GraceWritten byAdam CurtisDirected byAdam CurtisCountry of originUnited KingdomOriginal languageEnglishNumber"}]]}'>No. of series1Number"}]]}'>No. of episodes3ProductionExecutive producerDominic Crossley-HollandProducers<br>Lucy Kelsall

Adam Macqueen

James Harkin

Andrew Orlowski

Running time180 minutes (in three parts)Production companyBBCOriginal releaseNetworkBBC TwoRelease23 May (2011-05-23) –<br>6 June 2011 (2011-06-06)<br>All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace is a BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis.[1] In the series, Curtis argues that computers have failed to liberate humanity, and instead have "distorted and simplified our view of the world around us."[2] The title is taken from a 1967 poem of the same name by Richard Brautigan.[3] The first episode was originally broadcast at 9 pm on 23 May 2011.[2]

Episodes<br>[edit]

Part 1. 'Love and Power'<br>[edit]

In the first episode, Curtis traces the effects of Ayn Rand's ideas on American financial markets, particularly via the influence of Alan Greenspan, who was a member of a reading group called the Collective, which discussed her work and her philosophy of Objectivism. While Rand's novels were critically savaged, they inspired people working in the technology sector of Silicon Valley, leading to the emergence of the Californian Ideology, a techno-utopian belief that computer networks could measure, control and help to stabilise societies without hierarchical political control. Rand had an affair with Nathaniel Branden, another member of The Collective, with the approval of Branden's wife, Barbara Branden. The affair would eventually end acrimoniously and the Collective disbanded. Rand's circle of friends contracted considerably, though Greenspan remained loyal to her.

Alan Greenspan

Greenspan entered government in the 1970s and became Chairman of the Federal Reserve. In 1992, he visited the newly elected Bill Clinton and persuaded him to curtail U.S. government intervention in the economy, letting the markets manage themselves with the help of computer modelling to predict risks and hedge against them, a paradigm named "the New Economy". However, by 1996, production figures failed to increase, but profits were nevertheless rising. Greenspan worried that unsustainable speculative bubbles were forming, but after political attacks from all sides, Greenspan changed his reasoning and suggested that new efficiencies had emerged that his data wasn't measuring. In parallel with this, American investors began pouring large sums of money into economies in eastern Asia, though the Council of Economic Advisers, led by Joseph Stiglitz, began warning that these economies were much more fragile than they seemed. However, these warnings did not reach the president, having been blocked by Robert Rubin, who feared damage to financial interests.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis began as the property bubble in the Far East began to burst in, first in Thailand, then later in South Korea and Indonesia, causing large financial losses in those countries that greatly affected foreign investors. While Bill Clinton was preoccupied with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Robert Rubin took control of foreign policy and forced loans onto the affected countries. However, after each country agreed to be bailed out by the IMF, foreign investors immediately withdrew their money, destroying their economies and leaving their taxpayers with enormous debts.

Robert Rubin

Alan Greenspan would rise to greater prominence after his handling of the economic effects of the September 11 attacks, later cutting interest rates in the wake of the Enron scandal in a bid to stimulate the economy. Unusually, this triggered a consumer boom without creating inflation, creating new certainty that the New Economy truly existed. However, in reality, to avoid a repeat of the earlier economic crises in East Asia, China's Politburo had decided to influence America's economy via similar techniques to those used by America on other Far Eastern countries. By keeping China's exchange rate artificially low, they sold cheap goods to America, using the proceeds to buy American bonds. The money flooding into America reduced the perception of risk in signing loans to lower income clients, permitting lending beyond the point that was actually sustainable. The high level of loan defaulting that...