Thursday, December 11, 2008

No Mea Culpas

My post this week at Campaign for America's Future got posted on TomPaine.com between pieces by Joe Stiglitz and James K. Galbraith: flattering to the point of embarrassing. Both of their post are worth a careful read. Stiglitz wraps up his thumbnail history of the econonomic crisis with this gem:
The truth is most of the individual mistakes boil down to just one: a belief that markets are self-adjusting and that the role of government should be minimal. Looking back at that belief during hearings this fall on Capitol Hill, Alan Greenspan said out loud, “I have found a flaw.” Congressman Henry Waxman pushed him, responding, “In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right; it was not working.” “Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. The embrace by America—and much of the rest of the world—of this flawed economic philosophy made it inevitable that we would eventually arrive at the place we are today.
Don't expect any mea culpas from the Randians who promoted that philosophy for the last several decades. Many people read Atlas Shrugged in high school. Not all of them grow up.

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