Destructionists who ruined millions of lives and whose toxic distortions destroyed multiple generations in more than a hundred countries around the world are *not* worthy of mass celebration.
But their deaths do provide us with an opportunity — and an obligation — for reflection, re-evaluation, and correction.
Alan Greenspan died yesterday. He was 100.
Like his disgraced contemporary the late Milton Friedman, and other Chicago School of Economics neoclassical free-market conservative ivory tower monsters, Alan Greenspan was a champion of unbridled consumerism. His most lasting pronouncement was/is that … “markets regulate themselves.”
[Note: I realize this terse comment is oversimplifying–my longer diatribe is available upon request.]
Greenspanomics: Markets regulate themselves. So, bad apples sour and fail. The strongest survive and prosper. And the scraps trickle down to the Plebeians. If we work like slaves, we get a sliver of the treasure. America 2026.
No, this isn’t just a historical reminder. We live now with the distorted theories of these economic pit bosses — everyday. At the gas pump and the grocery store and when we pay mortgages and rent and try to struggle with the fiasco that is the American healthcare system. And they sometimes blow it, big time. Reaganomics 101 (actually Laffer Curve economics). Trump Gilded Age Redux economics, the sequel. It’s all there in their own words and actions.
Thing is, Greenspan fucked up — big time. I mean, he and his appalling misappropriation of theory into practice resulted in the 2008 George W. Bush-sparked economic global meltdown that came very near to yet another (conservative-driven) 1929 Herbert Hoover worldwide depression. Free market conservative economics have a horrific track record.
But let’s credit Greenspan for doing something exceedingly rare in economics and politics. He admitted he fucked up. He thought “markets regulate themselves” and then testified before Congress that HE WAS WRONG. Yes, we need government to regulate. To police. To watch. To set up laws and establish guardrails. Without government, most of us would be digging in coal mines 80 hours a week for .70 cents an hour, right now. Government and regulation is the sugarcoating on the capitalistic poison pill.
Greenspan even went so far as to confess he (and his philosophy) were right only about “70 percent of the time.” That means, he was wrong 30 percent of the time. Those percentages don’t sound too bad, but when global economies crash about a third of the time based on their theories and actions, that track record sucks. By the way, I’ve yet to see “liberal” economists with any significant catastrophies within the American economic system.
Mea Culpas are worth acknowledging. And I will give Greenspan his due for being honest. I also agree that so far economists go, he seemed to be much better than his contemporaries. Compared with Friedman, Alan Greenspan was a saint.
I couldn’t care less about this free market capitalist’s legacy. But I will give him credit for being brave enough to admit when he was wrong. And when he and his sick school of economics was wrong, hundreds of millions suffered and continue to struggle today. We would all be wise to learn from his mistakes and confession.
Greenspan’s legacy is failure, admitted after it was way too late.