Reaction Paper - Movie Review Example

The Agony of Reform" The movie “Agony of Reforms” looks at how most countries in the 20th century tried to create prosperity by relying on governmentcontrol over the economies. The communist nations employed totalitarian planning, while the more democratic ones grew their economies by nationalizing industries (Cran & Yergin, 2002). In the 1980s, these policies began to fall. The coming down of Berlin wall was the turning point that marked an era of turbulent economic reforms. Countries like India quickly moved to adopt central planning.

Others in the Latin America came up with their own economic theories. The movie explores how world economies failed and the new ideas that were embraced to carry out the shock therapies. Majority of these countries later embraced the free market capitalism. Russia, Poland, India, Chile and Bolivia had to survive through the rapid changes and had to deal with the new freedom and the dangers associated with deregulation and privatization.After the Russian revolution, the socialist economy in the country faced a major crisis with the leadership responding by coming up with programs that allowed limited capitalistic activities (Cran & Yergin, 2002).

The economy began to improve but by the 1980s, it was in shambles again mainly due to lack of incentives. The country made attempts to free the market through privatization, but due to lack of clear guidelines and goodwill, the denationalization was done in an unequal manner, further hurting the economy.“Agony of Reforms” also looks at the economic practices that were witnessed in Latin America in the 20th Century. Majority of the countries in this region relied on the dependency theory that supported industrialization by reducing the amount of manufactured goods that were getting in.

This was done by subsidizing the locally manufactured commodities. The counties were, therefore, using a Marxist approach to grow their economies and the impact of this was that the local industries lacked the much needed competition to be innovative and efficient. The failure of the set polices became evident in the 1980s when the nations started losing investments from the few foreigners (Cran & Yergin, 2002). Chile at the time became an experiment in the free market and its leaders called for the evaluation of the free market economic reforms that had been put in place.

However, due to the dictatorial regimes, the free market idea was associated with fascism. The country strived to deregulate the market with majority of the reforms implemented becoming a success both in terms of economic growth and democracy. Just like Russia, Poland had for a while relied on communism to promote growth. However, the labor movements led by Lech Walesa overturned this and went ahead to turn the country into a free market. The government control over the economy that was practiced by majority of the nations resulted into economic shambles.

This made the countries look for alternative policies. Nonetheless, the implemented procedures that were intended to promote free market resulted into short lived success due to the inability of the countries to deal with problems associated with free market and privatization.ReferenceCran, W. & Yergin, D. (2002).The Agony of Reform [Motion Picture].United States: Public Broadcasting Service.