Harry Binswanger

Who Is John Galt? We'll Soon Find Out

"Anyone who believes Rand's ultra-selfish philosophy (for example, Alan Greenspan) is trash."

This is the kind of anti-intellectual name-calling that only discredits your position.

I believe, and can prove, Rand's ultra-selfish philosophy. Do you think you can prove your Sermon on the Mount, self-sacrifical alternative moral code? Well, if you can, then you'd be the only one who's ever put forward a defense of that morality in the whole history of thought. Even Immanuel Kant couldn't do it. The Judeo-Christian demand for unselfishness is based on nothing but religous, mystical nonsense.

Trash? Here's the kind of trash I am: I have believed and practiced her philosophy for 46 years; I am a philosophy professor (Ph.D., Columbia, 1973), a book author, an editor, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Ayn Rand Institute.

As to Greenspan being the refutation of Objectivism, well that's an ugly, tragic joke. Greenspan is the living refutation of interventionism, of the idea that government knows how to regulate the economy. Greenspan, the "maestro," praised by liberals and conservatives, screwed up the money, creating the too-low mortgage rates. Will the next Greenspan somehow know how to do it right? It can't be done right, because the essence of "regulation" is to throttle the minds of individuals peacefully pursuing their own goals.

Oh, but "unbridled greed" you say. How could it be "unbridled" in a vast regulatory state? There were 51,000 NEW regulations imposed on the economy in the last 12 years. And which areas are the most regulated? Banking, insurance, and housing--the very areas that collapsed.

If you dislike "greed" (which is a smear-term, really) wait till you see what you get when the desire for money is replaced by the desire for dictatorial power. You don't trust the executives, the hedge fund operators, et al.? Wait till you see Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer in charge of your money.

As to Ayn Rand's Objectivism, Greenspan departed from Objectivism a long, long time ago. I saw his apostasy begin in 1969, in an article he published in Barron's. Then Greenspan "saved" Social Security in the 80s by enlarging its reach. Objectivism opposes the very idea of government pensions. That didn't stop Greenspan. Then he took the job as the head of the Fed, when Objectivism holds there should be no such agency. In none of his speeches as Fed head did he espouse Objectivism or any of its doctrines. He betrayed Ayn Rand, who would damn him if she were alive.

As to the comment, "even [Ayn Rand] would admit that the world is more complicated than that laid out in the framework of "Atlas Shrugged," no she would not. Because it isn't more complicated. It appears complicated to those who can't think in principles, those who trapped in the concrete-bound epistemology of pragmatism, those who can't see the forest only the trees.

You want it simple? Here is the lesson of Atlas Shrugged: you fake reality, you lose in the end. That's exactly what is going on today--with more fakery (bailouts) to cover failed fakery (cheap credit caused by faking the money supply).