Some of the discussion of economics, consumerism, collectivism leads me to recommend the following:

Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, based on the best-selling book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, confronts head-on critical concerns about the new interconnected world. The three parts -- "The Battle of Ideas," "The Agony of Reform" and "The New Rules of the Game" -- take an in-depth look at globalization and how it will affect our society's future.

I have only watched the first of the three dvds so far, but I found it to be pretty thought-provoking and informative. I live relatively simply for an American, so my lifestyle is lavish by global standards and I am concerned about that. I don't want my lavish lifestyle to come at the expense of lives of other human beings on the planet, but how we move from the rapacious media-programmed consumerism of capitalism to something more magnanimous is a mystery.

This review of the big ideas of global economics - the play and tension between keynesian economics of humanism and stability versus the potential rising-tide-raises-all-ships economics of free market economics is very interesting.

I have always fallen into the keynesian camp of economics. I think it is a middle path between the failure of government programmed economics of central planning and the brutal efficiency of free market economics. I do think that it is wise to understand the nature of human economic desire as something like a natural force, like the wind or gravity, that must be harnessed and used to keep the world economy on track, but the programming of human desire by entrepreneurs whose motivation is personal wealth and power and who have little or no investment in a sustainable and just world economy really pose a significant risk to the future of human beings and I am not sure how we collectively should address that matter.

Long story short: I recommend watching these dvds. They combine important lessons in history, economics, and ethics with entertainment value. The product itself in its ability to connect the demand of entertainment with the need for learning and thinking in some ways answers the question about how global economics should be crafted.