On the power of rich-ass cults to screw up society
Source: New York Times
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html?em
Title: "Blindly Into the Bubble", by Paul Krugman
Date: December 21, 2007
The Cult of Rand enjoys a certain amount of success, and therefore influence. Poor cults, the ones frustrted by their own impotence, are the ones that buy their followers identical sneakers and sweatpants, and give them suicide applesauce. But rich cults don't have to follow the rules of emasculation and suicide. They can afford to buy influence. This is, of course, a reward of success, so it only follows as logical that a cult dedicated to self-centeredness should appeal to many who want to be successful. And it should not be surprising that some of those people will be
exceptionally successful.
I mean, it's not like the Cult of Rand is alone in advocating megalomaniacal self-obsession. Didn't the poster child for Scientology just make that apparent a matter of weeks ago?
So the CoS has Tom Cruise. The CoR has Alan Greenspan:
So where were the regulators as one of the greatest financial disasters since the Great Depression unfolded? They were blinded by ideology.
“Fed shrugged as subprime crisis spread,” was the headline on a New York Times report on the failure of regulators to regulate. This may have been a discreet dig at Mr. Greenspan’s history as a disciple of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism known for her novel “Atlas Shrugged.”
In a 1963 essay for Ms. Rand’s newsletter, Mr. Greenspan dismissed as a “collectivist” myth the idea that businessmen, left to their own devices, “would attempt to sell unsafe food and drugs, fraudulent securities, and shoddy buildings.” On the contrary, he declared, “it is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest dealings and a quality product.”
It’s no wonder, then, that he brushed off warnings about deceptive lending practices, including those of Edward M. Gramlich, a member of the Federal Reserve board. In Mr. Greenspan’s world, predatory lending — like attempts to sell consumers poison toys and tainted seafood — just doesn’t happen.
(
Krugman)
Curiously, my father was once parroted a philosophy close to that. It twisted the knife in his back, too, and then he moved out, hid himself away, and eventually reemerged as someone I could get along with.
When Enron collapsed and Wall Street was revealed as a massive fraud, the events shook him profoundly. He
really didn't believe such things could ever happen. He really thought that sort of thing was a pinko myth.
And yet that irrationality, because it is
so appealing to people ensconced comfortably within fright, persists and works to grow. Perhaps the best thing we might get from attempts by Rand cultists to inject her work visibly into the cultural discussion is a more common understanding of why the philosophy has so dismally failed. Or maybe it hasn't. Greenspan isn't poor. UNCC's donor isn't poor. And altruism?
No wonder Rand is on the CoS reading list. Oh, right. This time I mean the Church of Satan, not Scientology. And, yes, they
are two different churches.
____________________
See Also:
Greenspan, Alan. "The Roots of the Mortgage Crisis". Wall Street Journal. December 12, 2007; page A19. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119741050259621811.html
Krugman, Paul. "Greenspan and the Bubble". New York Times. August 29, 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/29/opinion/29krugman.html
Krugman, Paul. "The infallible Greenspan". The Conscience of a Liberal. December 12, 2007. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/the-infallible-greenspan/
