This hour-long program features stories of economic freedom
in action in Zambia, South Korea, Slovakia and Chile, presented by Swedish
author, commentator and Cato Senior Fellow Johan Norberg. Economic Freedom in Action: Changing Lives depicts the lives of
four entrepreneurs around the globe and how economic freedom has influenced
their lives.
Daesung Kim is a
venture capitalist in Seoul, South Korea, who funds fellow North Korean
refugees, giving them their start in business and putting them on a path of
self-reliance.
Kim escaped North
Korea at age 27, crossing the Changbai Shan River into China, after finding out
he was on a watch list for illegally trading goods across the border to help
provide for his parents and siblings. His life was in danger. Kim went to South
Korea, where he began working for a delivery service He went on to complete his university degree
and built a venture capital company focusing on small businesses run by fellow
refugees from the North.
Traveling over to the
African Republic of Zambia, we meet Sylvia Banda, an entrepreneur playing a
critical role in the development of rural Zambian farming. She has formed
partnerships with villagers, working only with hand tools, and having no
electricity or plumbing, teaching them improved farming techniques. They, in
turn, provide her with a supply of safe, hygienic food to sell.
Sylvia’s first
official business was a small, one-room, restaurant. From there Sylvia Banda
expanded her business to include extensive catering, a school for restaurant
service works and the processing and nationwide distribution of Zambian foods.
After many successful years, Sylvia and her husband redirected their focus
toward the distribution of locally grown Zambian foods -leading towards
constant innovation and training for the local farmers. Liberalization of the economy and
encouragement from the government for people to own property resulted in
economic empowerment for the Zambian people and allowing them to take charge of
their lives making the future very, very bright.
What can a man with a plain name who lived over 200 years ago tell us about life today? Who was The Real Adam Smith? And why should we care? In this two-hour, two-part documentary, Swedish author, commentator and Cato Senior Fellow Johan Norberg explores Adam Smith’s life, his ideas about morality and economics, and how the concepts he discussed in his books and lectures are still relevant today. 
Hour Two, Ideas That Changed the World, explores contemporary life and Smith’s influences on the very things we see going on today. Why is Smith widely studied now in China? Ethical businesses, like Whole Foods, showcase the morality Smith insisted was critical to thriving markets. Uber and eBay demonstrate that markets can thrive through the organization and “self-policing” of the participants themselves.
You can also purchase the DVD set on SALE here. Broadcast Special Price: $15.95!!
The Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller is the first of Mærsk Line’s Triple E container ships, and has the largest capacity of any ship at sea. It measures 400 meters in length (the Eiffel Tower is 324 meters long) and carries more than 18,000 containers, filled with everything from computer parts to bananas. The containers are stacked 18 tall with fewer than 50 percent of them visible above the deck when the ship is loaded.
Jim and I flew to Hong Kong in April, five days before our program host, Johan Norberg, was to arrive. Part of our mission as director and field producer was to find the exact location where Milton had stood in Free To Choose to describe the powerful Hong Kong economy of 1980. We were armed with still frames captured from the then thirty-year-old public television series. That meant taking Johan to some of the most interesting places Milton presented in 1980. Well, if we could get Johan to us. Hong Kong, you see, was our first location. Those first few days, Jim and I worked with a local production assistant named Ho. Ho was himself a producer, who was very familiar with the city and would help us on our search. The most important matching location was an overview of the impressive Hong Kong skyline. The idea was to position Johan just where Milton had been, so that the angle and size of the buildings matched the old footage, and we could see the changes. We knew that we needed to be positioned across Victoria Harbor, shooting from the Kowloon side, but we had no idea how many of the original structures would still be there. 
Finally, I called the American Express international travel agency number. It seemed that Arlanda Airport in Stockholm might open at 4 p.m. that day for a short time. It looked like there was a clear spot in the cloud of ash. There was one seat left on Qatar Airways, connecting in Doha, Qatar. It was our only option. I booked the reservation, and asked Johan to go to the airport. He was skeptical, but he did. He soon emailed us a photo of the huge Arlanda schedule board with every flight listed as cancelled. All but one: Qatar was still expecting to go, and it actually did. It was one of the only flights that left Stockholm during the hour that the airport opened that afternoon. We were thrilled.
Now we only had three days with Johan in Hong Kong out of the expected five. We had chosen all of our locations, but there was a lot of material to cover. Johan and Jim had worked many hours in advance of the shoot to get the script into a "final" form, but there are always changes on location. We were thoroughly impressed by Johan. He was amazingly adept at memorizing and personalizing the script segments on the spot. After the first hectic day, we knew that we would be able to squeeze five days worth of on-camera scenes into three, with a few minor changes. The skyline shot was one of many, as we raced around the city, back and forth on the Star Ferry, from one side of Victoria Harbor to the other.
