Encirclement - Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy (2008)

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The 2008 crisis in America's banking and finance institutions that shook Wall Street and nearly collapsed some of the nation's leading banks was to a large extent the result of massive deregulation of the private sector of finance -- deregulation that was a product of an increasingly… More The 2008 crisis in America's banking and finance institutions that shook Wall Street and nearly collapsed some of the nation's leading banks was to a large extent the result of massive deregulation of the private sector of finance -- deregulation that was a product of an increasingly widespread belief that the fewer restrictions that were placed on financial markets, the more successful they would become. The events of 2008 demonstrated the glaring flaws in this theory, but surprisingly little happened to reign in the firms whose irresponsible actions nearly sank America's economy. How did the Neo-Liberal philosophy -- in economic terms, the notion of unfettered freedom of markets -- become so widespread despite the dire consequences that would result if it failed? Filmmaker Richard Brouilette explores the history of Neo-Liberal economics and how powerful figures in the private sector aggressively sold so many world governments on its virtues at the expense of the safety and security of their citizens in the documentary Encirclement: Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy. Featuring interviews with a number of leading historians, economists and political analysts -- among them Noam Chomsky, Donald J. Boudreaux, Filip Palda, Normand Baillargeon and Michel Chossudovsky -- the film reveals the shadowy history of how in many nations the private sector has come to control the public sector rather than the other way around, and what can be done to stem the tide of privatization. Encirclement: Neo-Liberalism Ensnares Democracy was an official selection at Toronto's 2009 Hot Docs Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi