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Alan Greenpan = John Galt?

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cliveandrews

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I've been fascinated with Greenspan recently and have been trying to come up with an explanation for his actions as the Fed chairman. One interesting train of thought is that he never really departed from Objectivism, and that he intentionally accelerated the destruction of the mixed economy with the goal of destroying altruism. Is this a possible explanation for the course Greenspan took in life, or do you think it's silly?

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I've been fascinated with Greenspan recently and have been trying to come up with an explanation for his actions as the Fed chairman. One interesting train of thought is that he never really departed from Objectivism, and that he intentionally accelerated the destruction of the mixed economy with the goal of destroying altruism. Is this a possible explanation for the course Greenspan took in life, or do you think it's silly?

I did a search for Greenspan earlier today. There is a lot of discussion here about your exact question. This one comes to mind:

Is Greenspan really Francisco D'Anconia?

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No, Greenspan is simply a (self-described) pragmatist who once believed "philosophically" in laissez-faire, but only on the "higher philosophical level," ie., totally divorced from one's actions, which means he is a Keynesian coward that hides behind his philosophical labels.

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What's wrong with conspiracy theories? Do consipiracies only occur in movies?

Conspiracies happen all the time. But here's something that only happens in movies: someone formulating a theory that guesses the details of a complex plot, based on no evidence whatsoever. Those are your usual conspiracy theories, and what's wrong with them is that they are the result of fantasy, not reason.

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Conspiracies happen all the time. But here's something that only happens in movies: someone formulating a theory that guesses the details of a complex plot, based on no evidence whatsoever. Those are your usual conspiracy theories, and what's wrong with them is that they are the result of fantasy, not reason.

That's right and that's what I love about Objectivism. You validate a position by the evidence and logic, which includes banging out contradictions, hierarchy of knowledge and context. Random bits of knowledge can easily be built into virtually any position you like, which is why there are so many wild conspiracy theories out there that people believe. The cure for that problem is to realize that you have to integrate all of your knowledge, and you have to have enough information on a subject to reach a valid conclusion.

It's very much like puzzle building when you don't know the picture that is on the outside of the box. Eventually you will be able to make out what the picture is, but you need to put a lot of the pieces together logically (correctly) for that to happen.

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