Today I watched the episode on Marx. One problem with the left in the 1980s was that you had believe Marxism. This was a problem for me, because I don't like ideas such as the inevitable will of history.
OK "had" is a bit too strong, but is was one of the main philosophies of the left.
I did try to read some books about it though. I got depressed that I started to read that Marxism was coming back. However as the program made clear, people are more interested in the problems of Capitalism that Marx found, rather than Marx's ideas for a better society (such that he had any) .
I am sure Hayek was a good man, but his ideas were taken up by a bunch of crazy right wings people, such as Thatcher and Glenn Beck. The amount of information in a TV program can usually be written on a page of A4 paper. What I didn't realize about Hayek was that he was such a hard core fan of markets, that he didn't want the central banks to determine interest rates. in the 80s the govermant used high interest rates to control something, perhaps the money supply. A lot of people lost their houses because of that, and no doubt the same would happen again, if Hayek's ideas were tried.
Umm, so Hayek got a Nobel prize, but Keynes did not. Well the Economics Nobel isn't real anyway.