Alan Greenspan, Randite retires

Alan Greenspan on Ayn Rand Alan Greenspan once wrote the following to the New York Times Book Review, circa 1957:

"To the Editor:

Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should. Mr. Hicks suspiciously wonders "about a person who sustains such a mood through the writing of 1,168 pages and some fourteen years of work." This reader wonders about a person who finds unrelenting justice personally disturbing.

Alan Greenspan, NY"

It is well-known that Alan Greenspan was an acolyte of Ayn Rand in his early years. It is also well known that Greenspan presided over the longest economic expansion in American history.

A group of admirers of Ayn Rand gathered on Saturday evenings in Rand’s living room “for discussions of philosophy,” Greenspan is listed among members of the group and identified only as “an economic consultant.”

Greenspan had recommended to a Senate committee that all economic regulations should have fixed lifespans. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) accused him of “playing with fire, or indeed throwing gasoline on the fire,” and asked him whether he favored a similar provision in the Fed’s authorization. Greenspan coolly answered that he did. Do you actually mean, demanded the senator, that the Fed “should cease to function unless affirmatively continued?” “That is correct, sir,” Greenspan responded. “All right,” the senator came back, “the Defense Department?” “Yes.”

The Senator could scarcely believe his ears. “Now my next question is, is it your intention that the report of this hearing should be that Greenspan recommends a return to the gold standard?” Greenspan responded, “I’ve been recommending that for years, there’s nothing new about that…. It would probably mean there is only one vote in the Federal Open Market Committee for that, but it is mine.” This may be the first time that advocating a policy on a nationally televised Senate committee meeting has been characterized as trying to implement a policy “ever so quietly.”

Greenspan doesn’t talk to the press as a matter of policy. But it appears he has tried to implement policy changes coherent with laissez-faire capitalism whenever it was possible, and he has articulated his case when given the opportunity. As Barbara Branden observes, “Alan believes in the art of the possible.” And, as his friend Joan Mitchell Blumenthal has observed, “Alan is very devoted to Ayn. He still thinks of her most kindly.”

Comments

[RobertDean]

It's great that Greenspan is a Randite, but I think he has built the largest bubble we're ever going to see. His fiscal policy has encouraged Americans to pile on more and more debt and while it has generated lots of wealth and prosperity, it's not sustainable.