Writing on the Wall: Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Ayn Rand Centre for Individual Rights, has three thought provoking videos on the implications and impact of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In a two part video "The Berlin Wall", Debi Ghate interviews Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate on the history of the Berlin Wall, and the meaning of its fall.

There is another short video "The Day Communism Crumbled: Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall", where Yaron Brook discusses what the Berlin Wall stood for.

My limited technical skills did not allow me to embed the videos directly from this blog!

I am trying to compile a list of interesting and stimulating material commemorating the fall of the Wall twenty years ago. Would be great if you could share other relevant items that you may find, and post a link from our blog.

Here are a few more audio-visual links.

• Competitive Enterprise Institute marking the occasion in this video on YouTube.
  
• Cafe Hayek lists these two videos, on Reason-TV and an earlier interview of FA Hayek himself discussing socialism on YouTube.
• Reuters news agency has a slide show on the 20th anniversary celebrations in Berlin.
• BBC has a special page on the history, the events leading to its fall, and the present.
  

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

November 9, 2009, is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 150 km long Wall divided Germany, both physically and ideologically, for four decades. The fall of the Wall, triggered a political earthquake that signaling the demise of the communist tyranny in eastern Europe, and beyond. Following is my contribution on the occasion.

Communism was characterized by its contempt for private property, by the complete control of the state over the economy, and consequently, by its disregard for price as a signal of scarcity and guide for investment. Over the past two years, the foundation of global finance has been shaken, not because of any Marxian foresight, but because of the failure on the part of the capitalist world to appreciate the relationship between property ownership and valuation of that property.
To read, please visit In Defence of Liberty, "Berlin Wall 1989: Collapse of Communism - Lesson for Capitalism"

A version of the same article is published in the Financial Express newspaper, titled "Writing on the Wall", on Nov 10, 2009