In Our Hands, Part 2: What We Have
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Contains good shot of rotating globe.
Ken Smith sez: What we have, according to this film, is "the great gift of economic freedom." This is defined by the narrator as the freedom to produce, to make a profit, and to invest.
To help us to understand this, we're shown the history of average American housewife Midge's frying pan, as we're treated to LOTS of steelmaking and pan manufacturing footage (thanks again, Inland Steel and Borg-Warner) and are reminded that we have "the best workmen and the best tools on earth."
"We have plenty of problems," the narrator concedes, a vague allusion to all the things that never appear in 1950s business films. But such problems really don't matter, he adds -- not so long as we have our wonderful economic freedom. "And we're FAR better off than the rest of the world!" he adds. "THAT'S what we have!"
Uses footage from THE WHEAT FARMER.
capitalism free enterprise Politics Economics
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- Addeddate
- 2002-07-16 00:00:00
- Ccnum
- asr
- Closed captioning
- no
- Collectionid
- 19582
- Color
- B&W
- Country
- United States
- External-identifier
- urn:cid:bafybeie3dlexbtm6ig2f35xoqiuafoytkm3kzvilbxyztsd5jwk36fdchi
- Fil-transport
- boost
- Identifier
- InOurHan1950_2
- Identifier-commp
- baga6ea4seaqpnkvv7kc3nvkxk7cbqrv4io2prjtkew7qtr77r26rzixgyeyyknq
- Numeric_id
- 568
- Proddate
- 1950
- Run time
- 13:53
- Sound
- Sd
- Type
- MovingImage
- Whisper_asr_module_version
- 20230805.01
comment
Reviews
Subject: In Our Hands Part 2 what We Have
On the one hand, we get to see the process of how something we take for granted is manufactured, ready for purchase. In a country like the United States where consumerism reigns and people think that food comes from a store, its great to view all the things that go into a "simple" item like a pan or eggs. It was pleasant to view how people used to view economics when it was geared around real physical processes and a sane view of banking and investment.
On the other hand, we get a horrible Ayn Randian Bizarro world description of how it all happens, which just happens to be the random "magic" of the marketplace, ignoring all the public investment of infrastructure that is required in order to have most of the manufacturing they are depicting. The statement about "limited government" is a dead giveaway.
So, all in all, its a good film if you take the rest with a grain of salt.
Subject: We have what we have because we're Americans! (snicker)