Ayn Rand, left, and Alan Greenspan, right.
WASHINGTON, DC – With the world in the throes of economic upheaval, the work of one long-dead writer is coming back into vogue. The timing could not be worse.
Sales of Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged have reportedly soared since this latest dizzying round of government bailouts began in October 2008.
Rand’s dystopian opus is, at its essence, an attack on all that hinders the advancement of society’s achievers, including government regulation, the altruistic impulse and public parks. Rand, a Soviet refugee, believed government intervention in the economy to be a crime against humanity.
Leaving a tedious philosophical debate for another day, the resurgence of Rand is nonetheless disturbing.
Among Rand’s most devoted disciples was Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. Greenspan, who Rand herself affectionately called “the Undertaker,” steered the American economy through over a decade of spectacular growth by steering as little as possible. Following Rand’s advice to deregulate, Greenspan slashed interest rates and eschewed government oversight of the financial industry, notably resisting calls to more closely regulate little understood financial instruments with the obtuse and now infamous moniker, derivatives.
After years of feverish economic expansion, the Undertaker took us under, steering the economy into the financial hole in which we find ourselves today. “Yes, I found a flaw,” Greenspan said of his free-market ideology, 20 years too late.
The greatest problem with Ayn Rand’s radical free-market ideology is the same problem with the Socialism that Rand, Greenspan and the recent tea-party enthusiasts are so averse to: its ideological rigidity.
We’ve seen the pitfalls of deregulation time and again – the market crashes of 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929, 1987, the Savings and Loan Crisis, and the current debacle – and once again some are confusing the cause with the cure. What we need is not fanatical adherence to any ideology, but a pragmatic approach to a stable, robust economy.
If Ayn Rand’s free-market fanaticism is resurrected from the grave, I’m afraid we’ll find the Undertaker has led us all the way to the graveyard.
