"Greenspan's legacy hardly fits the definition of a libertarian market, but looks very much like another phenomenon described in his book: 'When a government's leaders routinely seek out private-sector individuals or businesses and, in exchange for political support, bestow favours on them, the society is said to be in the grip of 'crony capitalism'.' He was talking about Indonesia under Suharto, but my mind went straight to Iraq under Halliburton. Greenspan is currently warning the world about a dangerous looming backlash against capitalism. Apparently, this has nothing at all to do with the policies of negligent deregulation that were his trademark. Nothing to do with stagnant wages due to free trade and weakened unions, nor with pensions lost to Enron or the dotcom crash, nor homes seized in the subprime mortgage crisis. According to Greenspan, rampant inequality is caused by lousy high schools (which also have nothing to do with his ideology's war on the public sphere). I debated with Greenspan on the US radio show Democracy Now! recently and was stunned that this man who preaches the doctrine of personal responsibility refuses to take any at all."
So that eventually leads to the idea that perhaps, this man who showed little interest in big ideas when training in economics, is perhaps still not interested in them, just in an idea that allows him to feel better about the politics of greed.
Perhaps the true purpose of the entire literature of trickle-down theory is to liberate entrepreneurs to pursue their narrowest advantage while claiming global altruistic motives - not so much an economic philosophy as an elaborate, retroactive rationale.
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Thanks a million, Ayn Rand, for setting the greedy free:
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