Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Alex G]

fuk John Galt


Ayn Rand, the hero of Alan Greenspan

BILL MOYERS: Watching Alan Greenspan testify before
Congress this week, I tried, I tried very hard not to keep thinking of
Ayn Rand. I failed.

The philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand was Alan Greenspan’s ideological
guru, his intellectual mentor. She was also one of the most amazing
fantasists of the last century, the author of two of the most
influential books of my generation THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED,
both timeless best-sellers.

Rand was a hedonist, an exponent of radical self-interest, who so
believed in unfettered, unbridled capitalism that she advocated the
abolition of all state regulations except those dealing with crime. In
the gospel according to Rand, the business community was constantly
beleaguered by evil forces practicing, are you ready for this?
Altruism! Yes, the unselfish regard for the welfare of others was a
menace to greed, and Rand would have none of it.

Alan Greenspan met her as a much younger man in New York and, like so
many blossoming capitalists, was smitten. He has since downplayed her
influence on him, but as Chairman of the Fed for nearly 19 years he
seemed quite Rand-like as he watched Wall Street run wild. Yesterday,
like an old warrior still in a fog after his armies have been routed
from the field of battle, he expressed shock at how his ideology has
failed him. He didn’t see it coming, he told the House Oversight
Committee. The extent of the meltdown is, “Much broader than anything
that I could have imagined,” a “Once-in-a-century credit tsunami.” The
wondrous glories of a free market with no need of pesky oversight had
somehow gone wrong. Now you tell us.

ALAN GREENSPAN:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations,
specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable
of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms…

CHAIRMAN WAXMAN:
In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working.

ALAN GREENSPAN:
Absolutely, precisely. You know, that’s precisely the reason I was
shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very
considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.

BILL MOYERS: With his ideological blinders stripped away by
reality, Alan Greenspan might well do penance by curling up this
weekend not with THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED but with James K.
Galbraith’s new book THE PREDATOR STATE: HOW CONSERVATIVES ABANDONED
THE FREE MARKET AND WHY LIBERALS SHOULD TOO. In it, the author asks:
“Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really
happening?” A fundamental question that surely has Ayn Rand and Milton
Friedman spinning in their graves.

Source:
Bill Moyers Journal
PBS, October 24, 2008
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10242008/watch2.html