While I don't consider myself an expert on Rand as a person, I've read quite a bit about her and I've been around quite a few people who believe in her Objectivist philosophy as devoutly as some fundamentalists believe in their church.

As a novelist, I saw the flaws in the story line of Atlas Shrugged the first time I read it, back in early 1968. But as a politically vulnerable individual, I also absorbed a certain amount of the philosophy. It's a "moral hazard" to put in front of the uninformed an ideology that catapults "men of the mind" to precedence over "mere labor." That is Rand's counter to Marx, which is what she was trying to do. Hank Rearden was the sole creator of Rearden Metal because his mind created it. He had the mental capacity as well as the physical capacity to go into the mill and make the alloy, but he hadn't mined the raw minerals or driven the train that shipped them to the mill. And it didn't make a bit of difference that he hadn't built the mill or designed and engineered the equipment. THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERED was that he had created the formula.

This is not much different, in my humble opinion, from the extortionist profits that flow like an undammed river into the pockets of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or any other "creative" person -- and that includes yours truly (except I don't have that undammed river of extortionist profits flowing into my pocket). Creative endeavors are fine and they're necessary, but they aren't the SOLE producers of product.

Those who find themselves in positions to, pardon the phrase, cash in on Rand's philosophy are probably tempted ("morally hazarded") to do so. Why not Greenspan? Just as someone like, oh, say, Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin comes along and is the right person at the right time, why not Greenspan falling into the job at the Fed where he was "morally hazarded" into implementing his chosen philosophy, however misguided it might be?

A few weeks before I encountered "Atlas Shrugged," I had a chance encounter at a Hare Krishna temple in the East Village. Unlike nearly everyone else in attendance, I did not succumb to the mindless surrender of will and intellect; I escaped into a bitter cold night and felt relief. I was barely 19 years old, and I knew right then that I would never allow myself to trust anyone who put more faith in an unexamined idea than in his or her OWN intellect. The "devotees" in the temple served as an example. Now, I'm not saying I'm totally correct or that anyone has to accept MY philosophy as gospel without examination, but I am saying that I fear those who accept such a philosophy -- meaning, one that takes the moral/financial/emotional/physical destruction of others as "necessary" to achieve one's own ends -- and even more I fear those who have or acquire the power to implement that philosophy on a large scale.

I stand by my fear: Alan Greenspan has demonstrated his faith in Rand's morality of greed and he has the power to implement her vision. I see no reason to think he would resist the temptation, er, "moral hazard" to do so.


Tansy Gold