RIP John Galt

POSTED BY: Khyron
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 09:36
VIEWED: 805
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KHYRON

Monday, October 27, 2008 9:11 AM

Excellent read!

Quote:
RIP John Galt
by Devilstower

In 1966, Ayn Rand collected a series of essays into the book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. Twenty of the essays in the were written by Rand. The rest came from a trio of Rand's acolytes, followers who had already been writing the newsletter of her "Objectivist" cult for more than a decade. Among these were three essays from a member of Rand's inner circle; an economic advisor and dropout from the graduate economics program at Columbia -- Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan was such a close friend of Rand's, that she passed him manuscript pages of Atlas Shrugged while the book was being written. He paid rapt attention to her tale of mysterious genius John Galt -- brilliant engineer, physicist, philosopher, and organizer. Galt, who shows the world who is really in charge by leading a rebellion of industrialists against laws that interfere with their companies, was in perfect agreement with the essays that Greenspan was writing at the time. In those essays, Greenspan rails against the "statists" and their desire to blame failures leading to the Great Depression on greed and unsafe lending practices. Instead, says Greenspan, the economy was experiencing a "mild contraction" which would have amounted to nothing, had the government not overreacted. Greenspan also attacks the "welfare state" and its schemes to "confiscate the wealth of the productive members of society."

When John Galt leads his his own inner circle of polymath geniuses to abandon the working classes and form a objectivist paradise, Greenspan must have cheered.

The essays Greenspan contributed to the 1966 collection, like the rest of the book, praised the idea of unfettered, unrestricted, unregulated, laissez-faire capitalism. Sure, there were problems in the system as it existed at the time, but those problems were not the fault of capitalism. Real capitalism, pure capitalism, had never been tried. Under pure capitalism, there would be a complete "separation of capitalism and state," and the resulting markets would be self-governing and self-correcting. It was only the intrusion of regulations into the system that brought on instability and immorality. Kick government out, and the system would not only flourish, but express the innate reasoning and positive force of selfishness.

Chief Disciple Greenspan carried this torch for the next half-century and beyond. Pro-business conservatives (not surprisingly) found great comfort in a philosophy that said squeezing every dime out of the system was not only fair, but the only moral solution. Not long after the publication of his essays in Rand's book, Greenspan was invited to become an advisor to the Nixon administration. When Ford replaced Nixon, Greenspan became the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors. And when Reagan took power, Greenspan was no longer the voice crying in the wilderness, he was the very center of the establishment. Objectivism and Conservatism had united in Market Fundamentalism, and that force was on a jihad against regulation of any kind.

For the next thirty years, Greenspan would cheer the deregulation of the S&Ls and join John McCain in trying to protect Charles Keating from regulators. He would praise the deregulation of energy trading, and assure everyone that companies like Enron were pointing the way to greater efficiency and lower consumer prices -- and collect the 2000 "Enron Prize" in exchange. He would urge not only the creation of credit default swaps, but applaud their lack of regulation and invisibility in the system. He would argue against oversight, against limits on CEO pay, and for the increasingly complex systems by which banks generated new instruments of credit.

No one person did more to spread Rand's message of unregulated markets, unconstrained free trade, and unlimited power for corporate officers than Alan Greenspan.

Then just this past week, his absolute faith slipped just a little.
Quote:
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a "once-in-a-century credit tsunami" has

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FREMDFIRMA

Monday, October 27, 2008 9:34 AM

You know, normally I wouldn't give the DKOS the time of day, since as a general rule they've been as fulla shit as any other set of partisan hacks.

But on this one, I gotta say it.

AMEN!

I've hated Rand from the start, that whole "better men" bullshit originally foisted by european nobility as if somehow being born into wealth and power had nothing to do with their station in life, as if not ever having to worry about putting food on the table or scratch to pay tax collectors wasn't a huge fucking advantage.

And the idea that Altruism is the ultimate sin ?

To me, that idea, in and of itself, qualifies for a word I rarely use, and only when most deserved.

Evil.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

KWICKO

Monday, October 27, 2008 12:17 PM

Quote:

And the idea that Altruism is the ultimate sin ?

I gotta disagree a bit, Frem. Rand wasn't against altruism - she was against FORCED altruism. Altruism growing out of the barrel of a gun isn't altruism at all, it's tyranny disguised as altruism.

What Rand was about was the idea that WE have a say in what we do, and how we do it, and who benefits from our work. Quite Libertarian in some of her views, but tended to take them to the extreme, and definitely hammered on about them a bit much...

Mike

What, no catchy sig-line?

Trolls Against McCain!

FREMDFIRMA

Monday, October 27, 2008 8:54 PM

Wasn't how it came across to me, Mikey.

The endless point of those anvilicious diatribes seemed to be that even the IDEA of Altruism was at it's best, foolish and self-destructive.

And I took issue with that, Mightily.

Equally anvilicious and a bit less well written is a personal favorite of mine though.

A.E. Van Vogts "The Weapon Shops of Isher"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weapon_Shops_of_Isher

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

SERGEANTX

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 2:40 AM

Sorry Frem, but this article is a load of shit. The author is clearly unaware of the history of Alan Greenspan and his association with Rand's ideology. Greenspan parted ways with his free market roots at the first heady whiff of political power. There's simply no way to square the essays he wrote for that book (where he wrote specifically on the benefits of hard currency and the evils of the Federal Reserve) with the bulk of his professional career. I don't know what prompted his change of heart, but to hold up his career as emblematic of free market fundamentalism is ignorant in the extreme.

Ayn Rand was a nutjob in a multitude of ways. She was more a master rationalizer more than a rationalist and basically considered anyone who dared hold opinions different from hers to be a moral and intellectual degenerate. And while I have no interest in defending her legacy, I have to speak up regarding your representation of her view on altruism.

She deliberately couched her pronouncements on the topic as contentiously as she could - more to provoke than to persuade. Her take on altruism was mostly a reaction to the extreme view that's often held up as the ultimate good, namely the idea that nothing done in self-interest can be good or noble and that only acts of self-sacrifice for the benefit of others were to be admired. She saw this concept being used by governments and religion to manipulate the masses and twist the basic human impulse to the benefit of those in power.

I suspect we'll be treated quite a few articles like this over the next few years, gleefully cheering the downfall of the free market (when all they're really seeing is the implosion of the corporate state). What can I say? Freedom scares most people.

I've always resisted the temptation to hold up the downfall of the Soviet Union as proof that Marxism isn't viable - because the Soviets were further away from the ideals of Karl Marx then we are. But lots of other people weren't so considerate and happily celebrated the end of the Cold War as the final proof that Marx was wrong. I guess it's payback time.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

FREMDFIRMA

Tuesday, October 28, 2008 3:48 AM

Quote:
Her take on altruism was mostly a reaction to the extreme view that's often held up as the ultimate good

But that was my point, I always felt she completely strawmanned it to the point of ludicrous.
And combined with this factor...

Quote:
considered anyone who dared hold opinions different from hers to be a moral and intellectual degenerate.

Made it rather personally offensive to me when she did.

I often do things that, while of no benefit to me, or even, if I can afford it, cost me a little something, just make other people happy, cause I like to do that.

But yeah, I CHOOSE to do it, no one forces me, but again, the strawmanning of such altruism annoyed the crap out of me for that very reason.

There is, however, something to be said about manipulating the self-interest of others for the good of all - much like handing one child the knife, and letting the other pick which half of the cake to take, but this presumes one will not simply stab the other and take the whole cake...

Which is kinda how corporate america REALLY works in the Ayn Rand worldview, no matter the gloss she puts on it.

Nice theory, infallibly idiotic in practice.

And Greenspan, well, what I know about that scale of economics would drown in a thimble, but whenever folks started talking "trickle down", the only image that came to MY mind was some arrogant middle ages baron pissing off the castle walls onto his serfs for sadistic amusement during a drought - all the while telling everyone who'd listen that he was doing them a favor.

Which is, to be honest, about how it went in practice, didn't it ?

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

PIRATENEWS

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 9:36 AM

Rand's hero Galt... wasn't he a terrorist who wanted to genocide the planet with false-flag terrorism?

Sir Allan Greenspan Knight of the British Empire, current employee of the Bank of England, visiting Bohemian Grove before appointment to "Federal" Reserve Bank Corp.
www.sonic.net/~kerry/bohemian/photostwo.html

http://gayswithoutborders.wordpress.com/2007/09/30/george-w-bush-chad-
savage/