pisshead
04-02-2008, 06:39 PM
How Alan Greenspan Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the State
Roderick T. Long
Lew Rockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long19.html)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Alan Greenspan started off his political career, under Ayn Rand??s influence, as a fairly consistent Austro-libertarian, penning articles defending the gold standard and condemning antitrust law. Nowadays, of course, while he still calls himself a libertarian, few would accuse him of excessive purity in that regard. There??s been much speculation as to the when and why of his transition. For what it??s worth, in Greenspan??s recent memoir The Age of Turbulence (which I??ve looked through so you don??t have to ?? though I haven??t read the whole thing), we hear the story in his own words.
There??s not much libertarian meat in the book; the only libertarian or libertarian-ish figures to appear in the index (apart from a brief ?? and mistaken ?? reference to Herbert Spencer (pp. 278??79) as ??a follower of Charles Darwin?) are Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. (Well, we also learn that (p. 323) former Putin advisor Andrei Illarionov is an Ayn Rand fan.) Greenspan??s favourite economist is clearly Friedman, on whom he lavishes praise throughout; his favourite political figures, likewise adulated, are Reagan and Thatcher. Despite his early Austrianism, there??s no reference in the index to Mises, Hayek, or any other Austrian economist. (Okay, Benjamin Anderson shows up in a footnote; and Fritz Machlup is mentioned on p. 497 although he??s not in the index.) Greenspan refers (pp. 97??98) to his own early libertarian essay on antitrust, written for The Objectivist ?? but only in connection with his using it as material for winning Andrea Mitchell??s affections. (I am not making this up!)
(Article continues below)
Greenspan??s libertarian odyssey begins with his conversion to Ayn Rand??s Objectivism. When he first encountered Rand, he was an adherent of logical positivism, which he describes this way:
Pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, it is a school of thought whose main tenet is that knowledge can only be gained from facts and numbers ?? it heavily emphasizes rigorous proof. There are no moral absolutes: values and ethics and the way people behave are reflections of culture and are not subject to logic. (p. 39)
The reference to Wittgenstein is an error; the positivists were inspired by a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein??s writings, but it was a deeply mistaken interpretation that Wittgenstein himself never endorsed. (And who doesn??t think that ??knowledge can only be gained from facts??) But never mind. In any case, his introduction to Rand and her salon soon chipped away at his enthusiasm for positivism. The following story is a familiar one in Randian circles, but this is (I believe) the first time we??ve heard it from Greenspan??s own perspective:
After listening for a few evenings, I showed my logical-positivist colors. I don??t recall the topic being discussed, but something prompted me to postulate that there are no moral absolutes. Ayn Rand pounced. ??How can that be??
??Because to be truly rational, you can??t hold a conviction without significant empirical evidence,?
??How can that be?? she asked again. ??Don??t you exist??
??I ... can??t be sure,? I admitted.
??Would you be willing to say you don??t exist??
??I might....?
??And by the way, who is making that argument??
Maybe you had to be there ?? or, more to the point, maybe you had to be a twenty-six-year-old math junkie ?? but this exchange really shook me. I saw she was quite effectively demonstrating the self-contradictory nature of my position. ... It dawned on me that a lot of what I??d decided was true was probably just plain wrong. Of course, I was too stubborn and embarrassed to concede immediately; instead, I clammed up.
This exchange suggests that the young Greenspan was not especially well-versed in the logical positivism he espoused, since the positivists themselves did cover this sort of objection in their writings and could have provided, if not unassailable answers, at least better than no answer.
Rand came away from that evening with a nickname for me. She dubbed me ??the Undertaker,? partly because my manner was so serious and partly because I always wore a dark suit and tie. Over the next few weeks, I later learned, she would ask people, ??Well, has the Undertaker decided he exists yet?? (p. 41)
Full article here. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long19.html)
Roderick T. Long
Lew Rockwell.com (http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long19.html)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Alan Greenspan started off his political career, under Ayn Rand??s influence, as a fairly consistent Austro-libertarian, penning articles defending the gold standard and condemning antitrust law. Nowadays, of course, while he still calls himself a libertarian, few would accuse him of excessive purity in that regard. There??s been much speculation as to the when and why of his transition. For what it??s worth, in Greenspan??s recent memoir The Age of Turbulence (which I??ve looked through so you don??t have to ?? though I haven??t read the whole thing), we hear the story in his own words.
There??s not much libertarian meat in the book; the only libertarian or libertarian-ish figures to appear in the index (apart from a brief ?? and mistaken ?? reference to Herbert Spencer (pp. 278??79) as ??a follower of Charles Darwin?) are Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand. (Well, we also learn that (p. 323) former Putin advisor Andrei Illarionov is an Ayn Rand fan.) Greenspan??s favourite economist is clearly Friedman, on whom he lavishes praise throughout; his favourite political figures, likewise adulated, are Reagan and Thatcher. Despite his early Austrianism, there??s no reference in the index to Mises, Hayek, or any other Austrian economist. (Okay, Benjamin Anderson shows up in a footnote; and Fritz Machlup is mentioned on p. 497 although he??s not in the index.) Greenspan refers (pp. 97??98) to his own early libertarian essay on antitrust, written for The Objectivist ?? but only in connection with his using it as material for winning Andrea Mitchell??s affections. (I am not making this up!)
(Article continues below)
Greenspan??s libertarian odyssey begins with his conversion to Ayn Rand??s Objectivism. When he first encountered Rand, he was an adherent of logical positivism, which he describes this way:
Pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein, it is a school of thought whose main tenet is that knowledge can only be gained from facts and numbers ?? it heavily emphasizes rigorous proof. There are no moral absolutes: values and ethics and the way people behave are reflections of culture and are not subject to logic. (p. 39)
The reference to Wittgenstein is an error; the positivists were inspired by a certain interpretation of Wittgenstein??s writings, but it was a deeply mistaken interpretation that Wittgenstein himself never endorsed. (And who doesn??t think that ??knowledge can only be gained from facts??) But never mind. In any case, his introduction to Rand and her salon soon chipped away at his enthusiasm for positivism. The following story is a familiar one in Randian circles, but this is (I believe) the first time we??ve heard it from Greenspan??s own perspective:
After listening for a few evenings, I showed my logical-positivist colors. I don??t recall the topic being discussed, but something prompted me to postulate that there are no moral absolutes. Ayn Rand pounced. ??How can that be??
??Because to be truly rational, you can??t hold a conviction without significant empirical evidence,?
??How can that be?? she asked again. ??Don??t you exist??
??I ... can??t be sure,? I admitted.
??Would you be willing to say you don??t exist??
??I might....?
??And by the way, who is making that argument??
Maybe you had to be there ?? or, more to the point, maybe you had to be a twenty-six-year-old math junkie ?? but this exchange really shook me. I saw she was quite effectively demonstrating the self-contradictory nature of my position. ... It dawned on me that a lot of what I??d decided was true was probably just plain wrong. Of course, I was too stubborn and embarrassed to concede immediately; instead, I clammed up.
This exchange suggests that the young Greenspan was not especially well-versed in the logical positivism he espoused, since the positivists themselves did cover this sort of objection in their writings and could have provided, if not unassailable answers, at least better than no answer.
Rand came away from that evening with a nickname for me. She dubbed me ??the Undertaker,? partly because my manner was so serious and partly because I always wore a dark suit and tie. Over the next few weeks, I later learned, she would ask people, ??Well, has the Undertaker decided he exists yet?? (p. 41)
Full article here. (http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long19.html)