Greenspan's hidden, Objectivist agenda?!

WHO IS ALAYN GREENRAND?

Remember all the talk a few years back about America's so-called Greatest Generation? Those stalwart survivors who met the challenges of the Great Depression, defeated fascism in Europe, kept communism in check until it imploded, and established the historically unprecedented "middle class" from which Americans derive all their most cherished traditions, beliefs and values?

Yer old pal Jerky remembers well his own sneaking suspicions upon first encountering this concept of the Greatest Generation. It was back in 1998, when those words entered the lexicon via NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw's doorstop-sized best-seller. Since that time, the title of his pandering paean has come to serve as a brand name of sorts. It also serves a handy rhetorical whip with which to flagellate butter-soft Boomers, not to mention the pierced and tattooed sloth-weasels of Generations X, Y and Z.

How could the sturdy, worthy stock of mid-century America have spawned a generation of hippie/yuppies who then, in turn, shat out a generation of nihilistic sensualists? How did those industrious paragons of self-reliance come to produce the soft, entitled likes of us? Whence this perplexing xenogenesis? These are the questions Brokaw's book - and all its copycats - seems to ask of the reader.

Actually, "copycat" might be an unfair characterization. Considering the publishing industry's torturous turnaround, the speed at which these books were released seems to indicate cultural synchronicity, if not collusion. And while it might appear paranoid and naïve to believe that Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and others conspire to shape consensus reality, the fact is these five-star generals of the Fifth Estate do consult with each other, often to significant effect.

Case in point, the recent Homeland Security "summit meeting," where celebrity anchors and newsmedia brass attended an off-the-record dinner with Big Tom Ridge. The purpose of this meeting was to coordinate media efforts in anticipation of the next major terrorist attack on American soil. And isn't it comforting to know that if a suitcase nuke goes off in a major metropolitan area, Aaron Brown will be there to point you towards the cattle-car? But I digress.

It was last week while watching Alan Greenspan address the Congress that yer old pal Jerky realized something fishy was afoot. According to the unelected Federal Reserve chairman-for-life, the opportunity has finally arisen and the time has finally come for this generation - the Lamest Generation - to be noble, to sacrifice for the common good, to prove worthy of that which came before.

Here, in part, is what Big Money Yoda (a.k.a. The Greenback Pope) said:

"In view of this upward ratchet in government programs and the enormous uncertainty about the upper bounds of future demands for medical care, I believe that a thorough review of our spending commitments - and at least some adjustment in these commitments - is necessary for prudent policy. This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources - demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken."

More clearly, Greenspan is here saying Social Security and Medicare are on the verge of bankrupting the nation. Thus these entitlements must be cut, if not eliminated. But a brief perusal of recent history reveals that Social Security's collapse isn't all that imminent. The program currently takes in nearly double what it pays out, and is projected to do so for years to come. And yet, when anybody dares suggest dealing with the exploding deficit by reversing Bush's irresponsible tax cuts, they get this kind of gobbledygook in reply:

"The exact magnitude of such risks is very difficult to estimate, but they are of enough concern, in my judgment, to warrant aiming to close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, from the outlay side. For a variety of reasons, that action is better taken as soon as possible."

Allow me to translate from the Greenspanese: "Reversing Bush's consciously irresponsible tax cuts wouldn't be feasible, because if that happened, America's wealthiest citizens - the capital investors whose purity of vision and forceful leadership keep Western civilization afloat - would likely become angry, and refuse to use their wealth to generate more wealth. They would go on a strike of sorts."

The above scenario might seem vaguely familiar to some of you. It shares some similarities with the plotline of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Rand was an eccentric, egocentric Russian émigré who became the leader of a pseudo-philosophical cult of personality called "Objectivism." Her beliefs were a weird mélange of atheism, libertarianism, and fundamentalist selfishness. In Atlas Shrugged, the "creative people" of the world decide to withhold their genius from the unworthy masses and retreat from society. They relocate to a faraway hidden valley where they create their own private utopia. Without them, the civilization they left behind spirals into anarchy and collapses.

Despite its obvious comedic potential - think Bill Gates and Warren Buffet taking turns emptying the chamber pot every morning - Atlas Shrugged was not meant as satire. Rand took her fiction, her philosophy, and herself very seriously, even when few others did.

One of the first people to take Ayn Rand seriously - other than Ayn Rand, of course - was Alan Greenspan. He found her philosophy so appealing that he became a member of her cult's inner circle, known as "the Collective." Legend has it that Greenspan first read Atlas Shrugged literally while Rand was writing it. He would read the freshly finished pages as she peeled them from her typewriter. In 1957, Greenspan defended Atlas Shrugged's merits in a letter to the New York Times, after that paper had published a negative review. The letter sounds a disturbing note:

"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"

Half a century ago, Greenspan used the language of genocide to express his "joy" at the idea of "creative individuals" with "undeviating purpose" one day meting out "unrelenting justice" to social "parasites," causing them to "perish." Today, two decades after he reformed Social Security in a way that increased its burden on the working class and left the program ripe for Republican plunder, he's using romanticized, revisionist myths about the "rugged individualism" of the Greatest Generation as a pretext for dismantling one of that generation's most important legacies. "The money can't be spared. You don't deserve it anyway. Come on… noblesse oblige!"

If it's true that the Greatest Generation was, indeed, the greatest generation, it's only because they had to be. Rugged individualism didn't pull America out of the Great Depression. It took a New Deal - proactive government responding to legitimate needs - to do that. Fascism wasn't defeated by rugged individualism, but by cooperation between Allies, including a great many communists. The trillions of dollars spent playing "bankruptcy chicken" with the USSR during the Cold War didn't come from rugged individuals. Taxes paid for it. The government paid for it. The state paid for it. The collective paid for it.

And where were the rugged individuals during all this?

They were doing everything in their power to avoid paying taxes. They were closing down factories at home, and opening new ones in unregulated sweatshop nations. They were treating government contracts like a license to steal, charging two hundred dollars for a hammer and five hundred for a toilet seat. They were hiding all their assets offshore. Then they used their ill-gotten loot to buy more influence so they could score more contracts so they could make more money so they could buy more influence so they could score more contracts so they could make more money so they could get their own bought-and-paid-for puppet installed as Preznit, so they could hamstring those pesky regulatory agencies, then raid the treasury so there's no more money for public television, public radio, public health, public schools… public anything, really.

I guess that will be when the parasites, who persistently avoid either purpose or reason, will perish, as they should.

He will get his action, in spades, if they mess with soc sec. I guarantee it.

I had no idea that Greenspan has written to defend 'Atlas Shrugged' in the 50's...WOW..what one can learn when one subscribes to DU!

You're too kind.

"But Mr Greenspan no longer states publicly that 'the basis of regulation is armed force', as he did in an essay in _Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal_, a volume of Rand dogma that has just been re-issued."
--The Economist (London: Dec 1999)

Well, uh...

"I have been a strong supporter of the teachings of Ayn Rand for over 30 years. I haven't changed."
--Alan Greenspan, to Washington reporter Christopher Hitchens (1993)

This fun quotation is noted in the article:

"Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
--Alan Greenspan, Letter to The New York Times (Nov 1957)

:applause:

HOW CAN GREENSPAN THINK OF ANYONE WHO HAS PAID INTO SOCIAL SECURITY AS SOME SORT OF PARASITE? THOSE OF US WHO THREW INTO THE POT WHILE WE'RE YOUNG HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO TAKE FROM THE POT WHEN WE'RE OLD.
THIS IS JUST ANOTHER CASE OF THE RIGHT-WING TELLING US TO EXPECT LESS AND FEEL PATRIOTIC ABOUT IT.

ONE THING CAN BE BELIEVED TO BE TRUE: IF THE SOCIAL SECURITY FUND GETS REDUCED TO NOTHING, AS THESE RIGHT-WING CHARACTERS WANT TO DO,
THERE WILL BE REVOLUTION IN THIS COUNTRY. AND I DON'T MEAN AT THE POLLS OR THROUGH INTELLECTUAL DEBATE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

to take this marvelous essay and email it to friends.

It needs to get around.

s

I knew Greenie was a "Randie" but I had never heard about the LTTE. Quite illuminating.

He is one piece of work.

Thanks again for the well written piece. You should try to get it up on Truthout or Alternet.

O

is ridiculous on its face. A friend of mine, a member of "the Greatest Generation," had commented to me more than once how impressed she was by "Atlas Shrugged" when she read it as a young woman. She finally got around to re-reading it at age 72 and couldn't believe she'd been so impressed with it at 18. Too bad Mr. Greenspan doesn't have my friend's ability to re-assess his earlier enthusiasm for Ayn Rand.

Grow up, Mr. Greenspan, grow up.


"I have been a strong supporter of the teachings of Ayn Rand for over 30 years. I haven't changed."
--Alan Greenspan, to Washington reporter Christopher Hitchens (1993)

Great!!!
Economic policy by an economic/social Darwinist like Aynnie!!!

That's just an 8.5 on an "Everything's Archie" Scale!

But hey, what do I know

LAMOJ

If so... don't you miss it?!

Seriously...Ohhhh yeah I miss it!
I'm accumulating th DVDs and have an extensive library from it;s glory days on Comedy Central.

I remember a picture of Reagan with Ayn Rand when he was in the WH and I believe the "infiltration" of the Objectivists is complete and is now called conservatism.

I live in a community where there are lots of retired people and I have always had a problem with the term Greatest Generation. Yes - they stepped up to the plate and fought the war - no small sacrifice to be sure. But now, these people will not even pass a school levy for the benefit of the children of the people they depend upon to take care of their medical care, plumbing and electricity and all other needs.

These are the first people to beg for lower taxes and if that means privatizing government services to companies that do not pay health benefits - that is considered a success. Every time I learn of a new fee on charge accounts and bank accounts, I realize a child of the Greatest Generation, employed there, has just earned a raise or commendation.

Objectivism is nothing more than a state of psychopathy. Self-interest unencumbered by empathy and altruism is what we grow out of for good reason - ultimately it is dishonest. Rand's dishonesty was to label this stunted psyche as intellectual. Propaganda at its worst.

True intellect would inform the Objectivist of their dependence on the labor of others. They would know that their exclusive eden would never work without the sacrifice from workers. Many of the so-called social parasites are: injured workers and people who eat, breathe and drink the pollution of the industrialists and live with chronic illness and cancer.
Genocide indeed!

I read her books and came to the conclusion that it can't work.

Granted we are all self serving, but enlightened selfishness demands that we take into account our neighbors needs or our own needs are surely in jeopardy. To me this illustrates very well that Ayn Rand had no idea as to practical selfishness.

but altruists do help others who cannot reciprocate. Altruists have some ethical or moral motivation as well, even if they do hope for karmic returns.

To only help people who don't need it but might repay you in kind, as crony capitalists do, has no good ethical or moral motivation behind it, merely selfishness.

AYN indeed rhymes with MINE.

"Look at me, I am such a superb specimen that I can afford to be altruistic."

That is the theory, anyway.

People do nice things for each other because it makes them feel good about themselves? That's my kind of selfishness!

Finally, a circle that isn't vicious!

First, your reply to my comment completely missed the boat in the sense that it had nothing to do with commenting on the substance of my comment.

Second, let me elaborate on my comment: altruism exists because of a reason. THat reason has something to do with providing a reproduction advantage to the altruist. IOW, altruistic traits exist because in the past when people practiced altruism, doing so somehow made it possible for them to pass their genes more prolifically, i.e., acting altruistically either let more of their children survive, or it gave them the chance to have more children, by, for example, giving them a chance to have more sex.

THe theory goes like this: when someone in a social setting (e.g., a village, tribe, etc) acts altruistically, that altruism grants to the altruist an enhanced social status within the tribe (thus giving them the chance to have more sex, and therefore more kids). Why does being altruistic give the altruist enhanced social status? Well, perhaps it gives other tribe members the impression that the altruist is such a superb specimen that the altruist can easily afford TO BE ALTRUISTIC. This is related to conspicuous consumption these days: the person who drives a Benz is showing that he/she has so much that he/she can afford to waste some of it.

As for altruism feeling good, well, so does driving a Benz, or doing anything that gives you enhanced social status. That is WHY it feels good to you--because we evolved so that things that give us reproductive advantages (e.g., doing things that make us more powerful, more fit, better looking, etc), make us feel good. And conversely, if it is bad for us, it usually feels bad ( e.g., eating poison).

BTW, I am somewhat of a socialist/social democrat. Just so you don;t get the wrong impression.

Rand's teachings are horribly short sighted. She seemed to be completely in denial of our emotional nature.
Trust does not come from business dealings. Generousity is not a weakness. We are social creatures who need each other for far more than just mere survival.

A Rand and her cutthroats downplayed the non-theistic veiw of the universe and played up their worship of the market!

It's just warmed-over Nietzche-ism, with a few $$$ signs!

Give me an atheist like Richard Dawkins that views Darwinian development and continual evolution as man's best hope of escaping the "survival of the fittest" (Herbert Spence--Darwin never used that phrase), that frames our natural universe.

:thumbsdown:

Thanks very much.

just to keep this on the first page a little longer. Great essay.

:kick:

GREENSPAN, GALT'S GULCH, AND THE GREATEST GENERATION

Remember all the talk a few years back about America's so-called Greatest Generation? Those stalwart survivors who met the challenges of the Great Depression, defeated fascism in Europe, kept communism in check until it imploded, and established the historically unprecedented "middle class" from which Americans derive all their most cherished traditions, beliefs and values?

I can remember my own sneaking suspicions upon first encountering this concept of a "greatest" generation. It was back in 1998, when those words entered the lexicon via NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw's doorstop-sized best-seller. Since that time, the title of his pandering paean has come to serve as a brand name of sorts. It also serves a handy rhetorical whip with which to flagellate butter-soft Boomers, not to mention the pierced and tattooed sloth-weasels of Generations X, Y and Z.

How could the sturdy, worthy stock of mid-century America have spawned a generation of hippie/yuppies who then, in turn, produced a generation of nihilistic sensualists? How did those industrious paragons of self-reliance come to produce the soft, entitled likes of us? Whence this perplexing xenogenesis? These are the questions Brokaw's book - and its copycats - seems to ask of the reader.

Actually, "copycat" might be an unfair characterization. Considering the publishing industry's torturous turnaround, the speed at which these books followed each other would indicate cultural synchronicity at least, if not collusion. And while it might appear paranoid and naïve to believe that Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and others conspire to shape consensus reality, fact is these five-star generals of the Fifth Estate often do consult with each other, to significant effect.

Case in point, the recent Homeland Security "summit meeting," where celebrity anchors and newsmedia brass attended an off-the-record dinner with Big Tom Ridge. The purpose of this meeting was to coordinate media efforts in anticipation of the next major terrorist attack on American soil. And isn't it comforting to know that when a suitcase nuke finally goes off in the Lower 48, Aaron Brown will be there to point us all towards the camps. But I digress.

It was last week, while watching Alan Greenspan address Congress, that I undestood something fishy was afoot. According to the unelected Federal Reserve chairman-for-life, the opportunity had finally arrived for this generation - the Lamest Generation - to be noble, to sacrifice for the common good, to prove worthy of that which came before.

Here, in part, is what Big Money Yoda (a.k.a. The Pope of Greenback Village) said:

"In view of this upward ratchet in government programs and the enormous uncertainty about the upper bounds of future demands for medical care, I believe that a thorough review of our spending commitments - and at least some adjustment in these commitments - is necessary for prudent policy. This dramatic demographic change is certain to place enormous demands on our nation's resources - demands we almost surely will be unable to meet unless action is taken."

Greenspan here implies that Social Security and Medicare are on the verge of bankrupting the nation. Thus, those entitlements must be reduced, if not eliminated. But a brief perusal of recent history reveals that Social Security's collapse isn't exactly imminent. The program takes in far more than what it pays out, and is projected to do so for decades. And yet, when anyone dares suggest dealing with the exploding Bush deficit by reversing his irresponsible tax cuts, they get this kind of gobbledygook in reply:

"The exact magnitude of such risks is very difficult to estimate, but they are of enough concern, in my judgment, to warrant aiming to close the fiscal gap primarily, if not wholly, from the outlay side. For a variety of reasons, that action is better taken as soon as possible."

Translated from the Greenspanese, that means: "Reversing Bush's consciously irresponsible tax cuts wouldn't be feasible, because if that happened, America's wealthiest citizens - the capital investors whose purity of vision and forceful leadership keep Western civilization afloat - would likely become angry, and refuse to use their wealth to generate more wealth. According to the principles of supply-side, trickle-down, Voodoo economics, the wealthy would go on a devastating wealth strike."

The above scenario might seem vaguely familiar to some of you. It echoes the plotline of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Rand was an eccentric, egocentric Russian émigré who became the leader of a pseudo-philosophical cult of personality called "Objectivism." Her beliefs were a weird mélange of atheism, libertarianism, and what she called enlightened selfishness. In Atlas Shrugged, the "creative people" of the world decide to withhold their genius from the unworthy masses and retreat from society. They relocate to a faraway hidden valley where they create their own private utopia. Without them, the civilization they left behind spirals into anarchy and collapses.

Despite its obvious comic potential - think Bill Gates and Warren Buffet bunking together and having to empty a mountain cabin chamber-pot every morning - Atlas Shrugged was not meant as satire. Rand took her fiction, her philosophy, and herself very seriously, even when few others did.

One of the first people to take Ayn Rand seriously other than Rand, herself, was Alan Greenspan. He thought her philosophy so appealing that he became a member of her cult's inner circle, known as "the Collective." Legend has it that Greenspan first read Atlas Shrugged literally while Rand was writing it. He would read the freshly finished pages as she peeled them from her typewriter. In 1957, Greenspan defended Atlas Shrugged's merits in a letter to the New York Times, after that paper had published a negative review. The letter strikes a disturbing chord:

"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"

Half a century ago, Alan Greenspan used the language of genocide to express his "joy" at the idea of "creative individuals" with "undeviating purpose" one day meting out "unrelenting justice" to social "parasites," causing them to "perish." Today, two decades after he reformed Social Security in a way that increased its burden on the working class and left the program ripe for Republican plunder, he's using romanticized, revisionist myths about the "rugged individualism" of the Greatest Generation as a pretext for dismantling one of that generation's greatest legacies. "The money can't be spared. You don't deserve it anyway. Come on… noblesse oblige!"

If the Greatest Generation was, indeed, the greatest generation, it's only because they had to be. Rugged individualism didn't pull America out of the Great Depression. It took a New Deal - proactive government responding to legitimate needs - to do that. European fascism wasn't defeated by rugged individualism, but by cooperation between Allies, including a great many communists. The trillions spent playing "bankruptcy chicken" with the USSR during the course of the Cold War didn't come from rugged individuals. It came from taxes. The government. The state. A collective.

And where were Greenspan's rugged individuals during all this?

They were doing everything in their power to avoid paying the taxes that paid for it all. They were closing down factories at home, and opening unregulated sweatshops abroad. They were hiding their assets offshore. They were treating government contracts like a license to steal from the American people. Then they decided to use their ill-gotten loot to buy more influence, so they could score more contracts, so they could make more money, so they could eventually afford to get a puppet Preznit installed in the White House. This gave them the oportunity to dismantle and/or de-fang all those pesky government regulatory agencies, then raid the treasury. They've already begun cannibalizing public education and public health. Now they've going after Social Security.

I guess after that comes the part when the parasites - who persistently avoid either purpose or reason - will perish as they should.

Nothing drives me crazier than Randroids.. That Greenspan letter about Atlas Shagged is gold. Great Job..
Scott
PS love the name!!

My brother is an Ayn Rand Objectivist, dittohead, freeper, and all-around asshole. Maybe I should mail this to him. :D

who attempts to use fundies for their own purposes.
of course fundies use them as well.
one of the guiding principles of a guy like greenspan is to keep as much of the population believing in an intellectually crippling faith -- they are more easily manipulated by the unbelieving, intellectually superior elite.
objectivism has some alarming similarities to facism, no?

...in prefered modes of praxis, if not in actual deed. Most don't have the guts to act on their vile instincts. That's why they have time to read thousand-page potboilers about how awesome the world is going to when everything falls apart and their superior modalities of thinking will prevail, allowing them to assume their proper place at the top of the social hierarchy.

Little do they know, they'll be the first ones cannibalized for their soft, reader's physiques.

Now THIS is why I spend so much time on DU. Thank you for this essay.

:kick: